


we aRe the hearts

by hearthern



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Drachma, Ed is 21, Fae & Fairies, Fae AU, Maes Hughes Lives, Other, Slow Burn, Trans Character, Xerxes | Cselkcess, homunculus au, in which Amestris' surrounding neighbors are onto them, slightly inspired by houseki no kuni and also lots of faerie mythology, trans!Roy Mustang, will tag as stuff happens because spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-06-19 21:50:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15519345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearthern/pseuds/hearthern
Summary: “Xerxes is gone.”The servant who’d rushed in from the door placed a hand upon the floor, leaning forwards onto it, heaving.From her seat beside the throne, Daitan of Xing stood, glaring down with fear more than anger, her impenetrable facade of unwavering strength broken, unable to comprehend such an impossible truth.“What?” she breathed, her mind whirling at the outrage of the mere prospect of the statement. Disbelief drew her face tight, paling her skin.“Xerxes… the people of Xerxes are gone,” the servant slowly repeated. He raised his face to look up towards her, devastated. “Every last one of them.”On a digging mission assigned by Olivier Mira Armstrong, a few members of the Briggs crew dig up a mineral statue of some kid. Only, they've woken him up, and he's not a statue after all, but claiming to be the Crown Prince of the ancient, fallen Kingdom Xerxes.... It doesn't go that smoothly, but.





	1. Prologue

Of all places, Edan hadn’t expected himself to be tugged from the Earth and woken in the North.

 _Yet_ , he thought, as he stared idly down into his porcelain goblet, _it could be worse._

The hands holding his cup weren’t flesh but cold, hard, golden diamond. He could easily assume, then, that the rest of him was, as well. It didn’t surprise him. He could only hope that it hadn’t been too much of a shock for those who had been there when he’d awoken.

It was a secret of the Xerxesian royalty, one that they’d gone to great lengths to protect. Unfortunately, though… he’d been discovered.

Unable to apply his facade for fear of an escalated chance of recognition, he remained in his hardened form, his ankles chained with a mere six inches of space to maneuver around in what appeared to be a cell.

 

The world around him was white and all too bright. Vaguely, he recognized the sensation of leather and thick furs against his skin, heavy-gloved hands dragging him upwards.

_Let me sleep. Let me sleep. Let me sleep._

He stopped trying to open his eyes, relaxing them, but unable to find enough reprieve to truly block the light shining in golden waves through his eyelids.

_Mom, it’s too bright. I’ll cast a cloud over that luminous sun._

Cold. It was cold. It was cold and his eyelids weren't red, but golden.

All at once, he moved, jerking upwards and forcing his eyes open, gasping for air and blinking rapidly. A sick sensation wallowed in his gut as fresh air sucked into his lungs, filling them. Whoever had been holding him dropped him and yelled something, some sort of curse, and he reached out, scrabbling against something soft and cold as he slipped downwards. Reaching out to the wall of white and then brown in front of him, he dug his fingers into hard dirt, only for the weight of his body to further his plummet, uncaring.

_In a sea of white energy and rapidly bouncing electrons, the figure of a familiar man, a copy-cat, stood watching him._

“Fuck!” he screeched, before his feet planted on hard dirt again, jolting him backwards.

His head hit a rock, and he cursed, glancing first around himself to ensure that he hadn’t fallen into something dangerous and then up from his hole to see three men in thick, heavy blue coats staring down at him, incredulous.

He looked around himself again, ignoring them.

_Shit, shit, shit!_

Where was he? The curse- the curse had activated, it must have! 

No, two at once, a duo to escape-- flesh and body of yellow diamond, reappearing in a new location; where was he?

For a split second, he wondered if he was or would be in danger if he were to try and escape whatever situation he’d gotten himself into, or if anything else might be nearby underground, waiting to attack him, or if perhaps the men above him were instead. Then, his mind made up, he clapped his hands together, the ground instantly rising, carrying him up and out of the hole, far out of their reach.

Outside of the hole and in the open air, he could see more clearly where he was, though it answered precisely none of his questions. The world was an empty, white expanse around him, a forest of dark trees growing up the side of what seemed to be mountains to the…

_Shit._

He didn’t even know which direction was which.

He puffed a breath, surprised when it came out as a visible thing, a cloud of water vapor before his face. Then, the fact of how lost he was sank in.

 _I’m in the North,_ he realized.

He dropped to sit on the pillar, cradling his knees.

_I’m in the North!_

The North, the cold, Drachman North. The North of the ice spirits and where the melty lumps of human soldiers lost in the desert could actually put their large, muscled forms to use.

All of the bright white around him was _snow._ What he’d once imagined would be an amazing discovery, something that he’d wanted to experience ever since he’d first been told of it by his mother, blessed be her soul, was now horrifying.

The pillar shook. He glanced down, then fell aside as it swayed, broken by the hands of the men who’d woken him.

The sun gleamed, relentless, overhead.

 

“Rock child,” a woman addressed him, in a heavy yet sharp accent that he wasn’t familiar with.

Her dialect, he’d noticed, was beyond strange, like nothing that Edan had ever heard before, despite having been raised to understand all Xerxesian at least semi-fluently. It were as if it had been derived from his mother's tongue, but with a semi-Xerxesian language, and the mixture was... not as pleasant as she had been.

He raised his head, toying with his fingers.

She was an intimidating being, pale and blonde and tall, but with blue eyes fiercer than any of even his own weapon knives.

“What are you?”

He opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again, looking away.

_They haven’t recognized me._

He didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing, but if she spoke some form of pseudo-Xerxesian in the North and couldn’t recognize him, he had no way of judging.

He looked back up at her, and opened his mouth to this time answer.

“I am Xerxes,” he tried. “You are?”

Whether they would take that as him hailing from Xerxes, or would understand his reference to the royal family, he would have to wait and see.

_Best to keep it simple._

She blinked once, then twice, then turned to the man beside her. He appeared to be Ishvallan, though his eyes were concealed behind strange black spectacles, and he appraised Edan with a strange, almost-curiosity. He stared as though he had other, more important things to attend, yet all the same he appeared to be intrigued.

Who wouldn't have been, after all, with a living being of yellow diamond in front of them?

Edan could’ve sworn that he’d been one of the ones to lift him up.

He stood, almost tripping over his chains but thankfully quickly regaining his balance, and placed one hand over his chest, his other behind his back, bowing respectfully before straightening to tap the tips of his fingers against his opposite shoulder and then holding his hands out, palms up, before himself.

“Alo, brother of the South,” he greeted.

Perhaps the man would recognize him for who he was?

The man simply continued to stare, before nodding at the woman and stepping away. Edan’s heart fell, something dangerous working its way through his veins. He choked, trying to take a step back, forgetting his chains and falling as a result.

It was easily possible that the man had been raised elsewhere outside of Ishval, far from the Eastern deserts, but for neither he nor the strange woman to recognize him... Sure, regularly, he could blend in with his citizens decently enough, but for no recognition whatsoever in his form...

His ass hit the floor first, then his hands. The porcelain goblet of steaming, sweet chocolate shattered.

He’d been rejected. Why had he been rejected? How on Earth could they have not recognized him? There had been energy and a man, then he'd been unearthed in the North. What could have happened?

He seethed.

The woman continued to stare down at him.

“You're from Xerxes, you say?" she mocked. "Do you know what became of Xerxes a good thousand years ago?"

He looked up at her again, took in her confident posture, her superior air. Then, he pulled together her words. His eyes widened.

 _Don't react_ , he inwardly screamed at himself. A thousand years before...?

Finally, he answered:

“No.”

She huffed, then turned around for a moment to pace to the empty cell opposite of his, wrapping her fingers around its bars. Then, she turned back to him.

“Xerxes disappeared a thousand years ago. What, and who, are you really?"

His jaw clenched, his eyes widened, his heart pounding in his chest. His fingers dug through hard, cold cement, but his body was made of a rock much harder, so much so that the cement cracked and chipped around his hands. His every muscle tensed.

“King Xerxes?” he asked, trying _so very hard_ not to overreact, trying to channel his inner nice, peaceful, tranquil Aql.

“What are you saying?” she returned.

“What happened to Xerxes?” he pried.

“I don’t know," she answered. "No one knows."

He clenched his jaw, his blood searing.

“Tell me more.”

Immediately, she drew her sword, movement sudden, the tip of it resting right under his chin from through the bars of his cell.

“Tell me who you are,” she demanded.

Staring her down just as she did he, he slowly rose to his feet again.

“King Xerxes, if you are true," he answered.

She snorted, seemingly not sure whether to believe or disbelieve. He was too confused and muddled, too frustrated, to try his hand at deciphering her.

_Dark as the depths of hell itself against the bright white energy field which scorched as much as it froze, shocking all of existence from its skin to its core and back at once, the ringed hand of the King reached out, glistening. Then, it broke away, shattered by the soundless current and screech of the parasite._

“Even if you ‘are true,’” she mocked, “the king of a dead land is no king.”

His eyes stayed open.


	2. 0.I : Strikhedonia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing one Roy Mustang, and preparing for Arc 1. The chapter's got a lot more important information than just that, though.

Northern Amestris had nothing better to offer, Edan discovered, than hanging from the roof of Fort Briggs upside-down by one's calves in the early morning with a mixture of coffee and mint tea, watching the sun rise in the East while sketching out newer and more effective transmutation circles.

It was easy enough for him to slip on by the soldiers, his silent steps unnoticed, leaving not a print upon even the soft, pillowy snow. The grey winter coat, pants, and boots that he’d afforded in the nearest town only further assisted him in blending with the walls.

He’d just finished his newest revision of a cold combustion when someone coughed from behind him. Instantly, he stilled, dropping his back to the wall. Upside-down with his feet and calves on the lower ledge just beyond the fencing over the roof, he hoped and prayed that no one would see him. Though amongst Sir Armstrong, Buccaneer, Miles, and the now-deceased Claudius ( _may he rest in (pieces) with the rest of his polar bear pet’s feces_ ), his biology and true identity were known, he _really_ didn’t need the rest of Fort Briggs in on his little charade.

Heavy bootsteps scoffed the ground as whoever walked came closer. He cringed, his heart thumping in his chest. Unlike Aql, he hadn’t been blessed with their mother’s way with people, individual spiritual sensing or whatever the heck the weird-ass _fae_ shit was.

Briefly, he recalled her lessons on the cultural differences between Eastern and Western fae.

The person came to a stop just above him, staring out across the landscape. A moment passed in tense silence, and then they moved again, to the left, away,

 _Yes, go,_ he silently urged.

As though to defy that thought, because _Aql_ was the one with the ability to manipulate _people,_ and _fuck_ he hurt to think about, they stopped, turning in his direction.

_Fuck me sideways in the ass._

He stuck his tongue out into the air, as though towards the rising sun.

“I know that you’re up here somewhere, Edward,” Miles stated, his tone threatening ice duty should Ed not show himself, his voice ringing through the icy, frosty, windy air. “The Major General requests your presence in her office immediately.”

Edward was the name that they’d chosen to hide his unique circumstances under, _Edan_ being too well-known by Amestrian historians. Even little children had apparently heard tales of his wild, younger days terrorizing his own streets, told stories by their parents at home and reading historical accounts in classes at school. Edan’s all-time favorite recounting was of the time that he’d accidentally knocked a Xinguese princess into a coma, which he had definitely done, _sorry, Daitan_ , but the retelling was so comically _wrong_ that it made him laugh every damn time he heard it.

In truth, the two of them had spent a day running about the capital, sneaking around and playing petty tricks on cheapskates infamous for trying to rip off those of whom his father had released from slavery in his younger days and their families. One ugly bastard had gotten so pissed that he’d gone to make a strike at her, and Edward had hit first. Unfortunately, not only did he knock the merchant out, but he’d tripped Daitan on his way, effectively knocking her down into a fancy display fountain where she’d hit her head on a pointed rock.

She was a beautiful young girl at the time, shorter than him still with cute little bangs and ribbons laced through her hair in patterns of the branches of some sort of East-exclusive tree species. Playful, exuberant, and just as mischievous as he, they’d made a great team.

_(Rest in pieces)._

Injuring his allies just seemed to be a thing that he did, hence why he’d stopped leaving Aql behind whenever he went to make mischief anywhere, despite his younger brother’s empath disdain. _Someone_ had to be able to counter his chaotic vibes and keep Xerxes from falling apart in his wake. Aql was more than a perfect balancer; he tipped the ratio of Ed’s bullshit to his help immensely, fixing the scale to finally turn Xerxes’s opinion of him positive. Ed had quickly decided that Aql would be his advisor.

Edan snorted, his brow furrowing as he brought himself back to the situation at hand.

Of _course,_ Olivier wanted for his presence. She always did. Keeping him at her side not only allowed her to educate him on fitting in with Amestrians, but also allowed her to teach him the ways of politics and ‘survival of the fittest’: the most ‘important’ lessons for a King with no country.

Reluctantly, he pulled himself up, groaning under the strain of keeping his hot drink steady enough not to spill. Miles waited patiently beside him, arching a brow at his endeavor, but seeming for the most part unsurprised.

 _Good_ , Edward thought to himself. _They’re finally becoming accustomed to my nature and relinquishing their efforts to subdue my majestic fun times._

If nothing else would be satisfying that day, at least he had that.

“Enjoy your morning down there, with your blood rushing to your head?” Miles asked, his tone so reeking of sarcasm that even Ed’s people-deaf ears could hear it.

Edan grinned, resting his mint-coffee-tea concoction on the ledge and using his arm to maneuver himself up the rest of the way, curling his notebook into his chest and holding it tightly. Then, he grabbed his coffee and leaped deftly over the fence, his toes landing right on a patch of ice, though his balance throughout it all remained perfect.

From the sudden cold around his slightly pointier-than-average ears, though, he realized belatedly that his bear’s fur hood had behind him.

 _At least my braid swinging through the air will keep me looking epic_ , he self-consoled.

He glanced up at Miles and finally gave his answer, smiling cheekily.

“Of course. It’s quite frigid out this morning, and there’s a high chance of sandsto- I mean, snowstorms,” he quickly corrected, realizing his mistake, “later on in the day, but right now the eighty mile-per-hour winds are perfect for bat-hanging.”

Miles huffed and raised a hand to grab at the back of his neck, pushing him forward and starting to walk back towards the door to go back inside. Edward verbally groaned: the interior of the fort was his least favorite thing about it.

It wasn’t even the drab colors and blank monotone colors of it that bothered him, though both certainly did. It wasn’t the militant atmosphere, and it certainly wasn’t the cheek of its inhabitants, orderly though they were. Rather, it was all of the damned iron in the place. It’s very structure was made of the stuff. In his opinion, far too many of Briggs’s weapons and furniture and _literally everything_ consisted of cold, hard iron; it just seemed much more efficient to switch to nicer, mixed, impure steel.

Of course, Fort Briggs wasn’t meant to be a nice place, and so he was doomed to suffer. The Major General claimed that it kept him on his toes. He wanted to argue that he was always on his toes anyway, wearing heeled combat boots to add to his height, but he’d already experienced how crossing her went over.

… It had been a terrifying lesson, to say the least. Groveling and crawling along behind the Major General in front of all of her soldiers for an entire week, through all on-duty hours that the woman worked, wasn’t an experience that he wanted to repeat.

Their walk to her ice-cold highness General’s office was unusually quiet, but not discomforting. Rather, Edan felt in the air an unusual buzz of excitement, heard with straining ears a constant, far-off whisper in the halls that instantly and admittedly a bit irritatingly dissolve whenever his distance from its source lessened. The strange quickness in Miles’s every step as he hurried Ed along only intrigued him further.

In a pang of rolling anxiety, Edan wondered if perhaps he’d done something wrong, or if something had gone wrong. But, surely, Miles would give him some sort of warning beforehand in that case, so that couldn’t be the cause of the piqued energy lining the fort.

It was a habit that he’d tried very hard to break, constantly mentally trusting Miles in a different way than he did the others, none more or less, but differently, _desert brother of the South_ , but he just couldn’t seem to shake the differing identity that he’d associated the man with. After much trial and failure, he’d given up, though more recently Miles had become more muddled than distinct in his mind, though perhaps that were due more to the vibes he now gave off than anything else. There was something protective, hesitant, and almost regretful, though akin to pride as well in his voice whenever he spoke to Ed.

He gave off none of his telltale signs of stress, meaning that nothing was probably wrong, but something was definitely happening.

Almost before Edan had realized it, they arrived before the thick, heavy wood-coated iron doors leading to the Major General’s office.

Edan’s second hint that something different was happening was that rather than knocking and opening the heavy, wood-plated _iron_ door for him, Miles (blessed be his unusually benevolent soul) stood aside to the left and waited for Ed to open it. Ed turned his head to him, confused, but the man said nothing.

Slightly miffed, though it was a special treatment that no other soldier at Fort Briggs provided him, Edan tugged at his gloves for a moment before touching the doorknob and twisting.

Instantly, the iron sizzled at his skin, narrowly kept from burning through him by the too-thin cloth. Though it was hot, too hot, frying his palm and the undersides of his fingers, he knew that no wounds would be left.

Now, without his gloves on, his hand would certainly boil, the seemingly harmless thing sliding through him like a knife through melty butter, simultaneously leaving even bone to melt and bubble on the floor below him. He’d accidentally tried to open the door to his dorm without his gloves on before twice, once after a long combat training session with Buccaneer and once having been drunk under the table by Olivier herself.

Apparently, the Briggs soldiers had found a Drachman hunting group's camp underground not far out from the Fortress, and they'd decided that their potentially poisonous vodka was okay to bring back to the Fort to try and win their Major General’s favor. They hadn’t, though she’d seemed to appreciate the sentiment well enough, after kicking their asses for making such a risky move in what could’ve easily been a trap.

Edan sucked in a sharp breath to steady himself, and he pushed the door open. The first thing that he noticed when he did were the Major General’s boots on her desk, her back reclined in her black leather chair, and her fingertips dancing over the tip of her saber. Her right hand held it in a tight grip, as though she were ready to cut into someone at a moment’s notice.

Her icy blue eyes cut into him, and he gulped, stepping inside and allowing the door to close behind him, not quite ignorant of Miles’s slight smug smile.

 _Bastard,_ he cursed.

What he hadn’t noticed with his eyes trained on solely the Major General were the others standing in the room. They were two women, each in much lighter blue military wear than what he was used to. He blinked his surprise, staring at them. The uniforms weren’t revealing, still total in their coverage, but they were so much less fit for the cold of the North.

They seemed better meant for Briggs’s summer, if for any time of the year.

The first, seemingly of no small degree of Eastern descent, appeared to be a higher ranked officer than the other woman, though still outranked by General Armstrong (and his chest swelled a little with prideful adoration at the thought. He immediately bid that it stop, killing the fuzzy feeling before it could weaken his defiance against her dominant, ruling thumbs). She was relatively average in height, perhaps a few inches shorter than Olivier, though her posture, short-cropped hair, and uniform were immaculate, creating an air of perfect control about her that was possibly more subduing. Long, dark lashes framed her eyes on near-perfectly clear skin, and her glossy, dark maroon lipstick glistened in the sunlight streaming in through the window.

The second, standing a little behind and beside her, was decidedly Western in appearance. She was about the same height, with wide, warm brown eyes and blonde hair pinned behind her head. Her expression, at first stony, relaxed as he stepped into the room, though she remained absolutely still in the Amestrian ‘at-ease’ position.

The first, on the other hand, leaned down onto Olivier’s desk, placing a hand against the dark wood and thrusting one hip out flirtingly as she diverted her attention back to the Major General.

“Why, Sir,” she drawled, glancing at Ed briefly again, “I thought you had a strictly ‘no-strays’ policy here at Briggs. Whatever happened to that, I wonder?”

General Armstrong closed her eyes and huffed, frowning.

With her eyes still closed, she answered:

“The boy’s proven extremely useful time and again, and has been an absolute _gem_ in both combat and matters requiring educated knowledge.”

She cracked her eyes open, and Ed’s heart stopped. He knew the look on her face, the verbal whipping that the woman before him was in for.

“Unlike your thick, useless ass, _that_ stray earned his keep here.”

Hook, line, sinker.

The woman blanched, though her expression quickly recovered, her suaveness returning as she sinuously slid back up and took a step back to sling an arm around her companion. Edan held back a snort. The General’s tongue was widely known and widely feared, and it was always amusing to see someone besides himself take the brunt of it.

A sympathetic sort of amusing, though he certainly did like to point and laugh as well once she was out of hearing range.

She turned her full attention onto him, beckoning him forth with one of the fingers that she’d previously been running along her blade.

“Edward, come here,” she ordered.

Not bothering to correct his stance of movements, _they’re already perfect, thank you very much_ , Edan stepped forwards, coming to stand before her desk as well, staring unabashedly at the newcomers. He had nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of; he wasn’t a soldier bound by military etiquette standards, regardless of how hard Olivier tried to beat them into him.

“These two are Colonel Mustang and Lieutenant Hawkeye of Central’s branch. You are to be their guide for the duration of their stay here at Briggs, attending to their every need and whim.”

Ed turned his face back to her, his jaw dropping. His hackles raised, his stance lowering.

“Huh?” he euphemized, pointing at the two of them, offended.

Colonel Mustang leaned back, failing to drag her Lieutenant’s stiff body along with her so instead using it as a support. She raised a hand to cover her mouth, chortling.

Instantly, Olivier pounced.

“Don’t ‘huh’ me, va-Elric,” she immediately chided, releasing the tip of her sword to swing it through the air so that the tip pointed right at the center of his throat. “Speak words or your tongue’ll be as useless as the Colonel, a hindrance that I’ll be more than happy to assist in shedding from your mouth.”

He gulped, though well aware that her sword was more of a slicing weapon than a stabbing weapon. When she pointed it as such, she intended it to be a less immediate threat, though in her hands (and with her words, her possibly not-as-empty threat) it was just as fear-inducing.

Ignoring the voice in his head, which sounded suspiciously like Aql’s, begging him to stop, he whined:

“But _why_?”

Her glare sharpened at the sound, her pupils pinpricks amongst pale blue and silver hues. Then, she leaned back again, resting her blade against her desk, though purposefully leaving it pointed in his direction.

Finally, her eyes trailing down it, she answered:

“Call it your final exam.”

She then raised them to meet his own again, and added, “but don’t spoil them. Let them learn their way around here.”

She glanced at the Colonel, then.

“Or in Colonel Mustang’s case, whore and relearn.”

The Colonel winced, though Lieutenant Hawkeye remained steadfast.

Edan glanced at them, then at the Lieutenant, then at each again, before nodding.

“Alright,” he accepted.

The implications of ‘final exam’ weren’t lost on him, though he wasn’t entirely sure as to what would happen if either he passed or he failed. She could be intending to kick his ass out into the snow either way. Or, perhaps she was considering trying to officially induct him into the military.

… No, it definitely couldn’t be the last one. He had too strong a foothold and fervent passion for alchemy and, worse, performing it (the horror!) for her to desire that.

Whatever it was that she had planned, he figured that he would have to wait and see. Years before, or really, centuries before, interpreting moves such as this would’ve been Aql’s job. Since his awakening, Edan hadn’t gotten any better at it. He had, though, improved a little at reading the general atmosphere and people’s immediate expressions and actions.

It was just too bad that soldiers tended to cover those up pretty well.

“Effective immediately, Edward,” Major Armstrong warned, breaking him out of his trance.

He looked back at her to see her holding out a folder of papers towards him, conveniently labeled, _Edward Elric’s Escorting Information_.

He huffed, taking the packet from her and fumbling to shove it into the back of his notebook without actually unsealing the secretly alchemical ties binding it closed. After a moment’s struggle, he managed to slide it in.

“You didn’t even read it,” the Colonel laughingly accused, after a moment of watching him.

“It’s fine, I’ve got this,” Edward hissed in reply.

“Sure you do,” she teased back.

He glanced up at her, taking in her decidedly asshole posing and expression.

 _She,_ he labeled her, _is from now on going to be known as the Central lady-bastard._

Olivier raised her right hand as though to shoo the lot of them out of her office, barking out, “Are you going to take all of my day here, or need I feed you to the bears and assign someone else to escort that pansy?”

He barely caught onto how she only referred to one of them as a pansy, turning around and grinning as he made a mental note.

 _Now, that’s interesting,_ he decided.

He skipped forward, beckoning towards the two behind him as he made his way towards the door. They each gave a slight bow to the Major General, to which she pursed her lips and glared, before following. Then, he grabbed the door handle, forcing himself not to react as it seared his skin from under his glove, and pushed the doors open, relieved to escape the deadliest zone of the ice queen’s domain.

 

“So, the two of you never really introduced yourselves,” Edan commented as they walked down the hall.

It was a little thing that he noticed, not one that was particularly out of the ordinary for Amestrian soldiers, from what he’d gathered in the last four years that he’d spent at Briggs, but something that bothered him nonetheless. It was an itch in his side, an annoyance; in Xerxes, soldiers had always retained their full identities and personalities while ‘in uniform,’ though of course, they were to remain constantly on alert and respectful at all times.

What really bothered him about the lack of first-name introductions, though, was that he was a personal person, and he wasn’t a soldier. When he addressed someone, he wanted them to know that he was talking to _them_ . He wasn’t talking to _Lieutenant Smith_ , the soldier. He was talking to _Rhys Owens_ , the man who chugged beer like a champ despite his weak resistance to alcohol’s debilitating effects and who dreamed of hang-gliding from mountain to mountain while shooting down bears and elk, though would never attempt to do so even if he could because the fear of falling always lead to him wimping out of ice duty on Thursdays.

The ‘respectful’ bit didn’t tend to translate into Amestrian culture, at least when superiors were out of earshot. Having been a Prince, Edan was pretty certain that he must have qualified as such back at home, though he’d never noticed any failures of the like even when creeping around the shadows of Xerxes.

That, right there, was another thing that bothered him about Amestris. He wasn’t ignorant to the ancient tales of shadow faeries in the West and East, or the sand faeries haunting the deadlands of the desert, but there was something… unnerving, sometimes, about the darkness in Fort Briggs’s shadows that just put him on edge. He couldn’t explain it, but it felt almost as though there was something greater than mere fae lurking in them, something so spiritually tangible that even his blind-ass senses could feel it. Eyes that usually paid him little attention, but sometimes seemed to lazily watch, as though intrigued by the young man wandering the halls of a Fort devoid of any non-military personnel.

This was one of the moments when they focused on him almost entirely. He held in a shiver, trying not to hasten his steps and key in his charges to his discomfort. They seemed to pick up on it regardless, exchanging glances behind him, though saying nothing of it.

Instead, the Colonel answered, “she’s Riza, and I’m Ruth.”

In the back of Edan’s mind, a memory of an article that he’d read at some point flickered. Then, suddenly, it flamed to life, springing to the forefront of his mind. He whipped around, startled.

“You’re the Flame,” he accused, shock painting his face as he pointed. “You were promoted to Lieutenant Colonel after massacring,” _my fellow desert brothers,_ “countless men and women during the Ishval War.”

He definitely didn’t miss the flash of self-loathing in Ruth’s eyes at his words, nor the pensive, much less noticeable look of guilt that felled Riza’s facade. He spun back around, continuing forward.

“I’ve read all about the two of you, Flame and Hawk’s Eye.”

It seemed that neither missed how Edan left out ‘Alchemist’ from Ruth’s title, referring to him instead as Miles, contrary to the other Briggs soldiers, had tended to. It had always thrown off the other soldiers when Miles did so, thus he’d assumed that it held different connotations. Now, he was certain that he was correct.

However…

“I, too, practice flame alchemy,” he announced, adjusting his gait to slide across the floor more than step, allowing his body to sway, forcing his movements to smooth. He tilted his head but didn’t turn to look at either, allowing his braid to swing behind him with his every movement. “If you’d like, we can demonstrate and compare on the roof this evening.”

The roll of Ruth’s steps flattened a bit as her feet hit the stone floor harder, her legs tenser. Edan smirked.

 _I can hook, line and sink, too,_ he thought, quite self-satisfied.

“A child of your age?” Ruth questioned, her tone assessing.

He spun on his toe with a grin, beginning to slide backward on his platforms, his heel never touching the ground.

“Why, of course,” he mocked. “Couldn’t you at twenty-one? Flame alchemy’s quite simple, after all, once you get a grasp of even just a few methods of performing it and the how to keep your mind focused when equating and directing.”

The expression on her face was priceless, caught somewhere between shocked and disbelieving. At that, he actually laughed, before turning around and chancing a skip forwards, energized by his amusement, landing just as smoothly as he traipsed.

Drunk and giddy on his excitement and amusement, it was a little easier to block out the sensation of inhuman, eerie eyes passively watching them, their silent observer.

She tilted her head down.

“No, I couldn’t,” she admitted. Then, she raised it again. “But, I did by twenty-six.”

He whistled, then commented, “eh, still not impressed.”

Behind him, she stiffened further before relaxing again, and he inwardly smirked.

 _So, I_ am _getting to her._

He just couldn’t help himself. Amestris had such a lowly understanding of alchemy that it was downright pathetic. Granted, he was an alchemical genius even by Xerxesian standards, but he’d only once or twice ran across any theories that he hadn’t already heard or experimented upon before, and nothing that any of their oh-so ‘prestigious’ State Alchemists had openly achieved impressed him. They’d barely even touched upon manipulating multiple substances at once, for well being’s sake!

After a moment of silent contemplation, Ruth spat out, “Kid, I’m sure that Major Armstrong wouldn’t mind a show-down with a civilian, what with how she rules Briggs. You wanna go?”

Just then, they passed through a wide entrance into the mess hall. Interested heads turned at the prospect of a fight, some soldiers even shouting out, “hey, look, that’s the Flame Alchemist! Mustang’s back to accomplish little to nothing again!”

Ruth immediately relaxed, slipping back into her previous calm composure, as though ready to put on a show. Edan sighed at that, disappointed.

_Damned military people and their lying facades._

He stringently ignored his own hypocrisy, fully aware of it but also fully determined not to blow his cover and potentially face the possible consequences.

He spun around again, this time on his heel, leaning forwards and raising his face so as to appear the slightest bit more intimidating, if snake-like, despite being a few inches shorter than herself.

“I’d absolutely love to,” he answered, lowering his voice silkily, but enunciating his words loudly and clearly. He flicked his eyes over to Riza. “ _She_ can be our referee.”

The woman’s face remained neutral, though she seemed vaguely entertained by Edan’s teasing of the Colonel.

Edan threw his spine back, the movement still flowing, sliding his eyes back to Ruth again. The corners of his mouth lilted up in amusement.

Then, he spun back around and took off in a glide across the floor, his strides long and even, brisk though they were. If they didn’t hurry, they wouldn’t make the line before the food became cold.

“You two had better move quick,” he called over his shoulder. “If you’ve been here before as the General has lead me to believe, Ruth, you know that Briggs doesn’t reheat our cuisine.”

The two exchanged another glance before hastily following him, coming up a step behind him, Riza on his right and Ruth on his left.

“Unless, of course, you were wanting a sooner demonstration,” he offered.

“I’ll pass, at least while we’re inside,” Ruth immediately bit back.

All at once, Edan envisioned a viper rising up from sand, curving its body from behind him and unhinging its jaw from over his head.

“After all, I wouldn’t want any accidents to be made by such a _young_ practitioner of such an _advanced_ art.”

_Snap and sink._

Edan couldn’t hide the tiny jolt of his body at that, their verbal sparring _very much_ affecting his mother’s blessing (which was, at the moment, more of a curse, though he despised the thought) on his biology. He let out a breath, calming himself before carrying on.

“While I’m sure that you’ve had plenty of practice honing your skill,” he murmured, “I think that you’ll be surprised by just how familiar I am with your ‘art.’”

Ruth smiled behind him. Without having to look, he recognized it as the smile of a snake.

_Touché._

“We’ll see,” she replied.

 _Yes,_ he thought to himself. _We certainly will._

 

The Fort’s food was as bland as ever, simple potatoes, steak, and frozen green beans with plain, buttered muffins and gravy serving to satisfy the stomachs of those who manned it. It had never been _good_ , let alone close to what he’d eaten back at home, but it served its purpose well enough.

Neither Ruth or Riza seemed impressed with it, either, which he took as a sign that the warmer Central had better, fresher food. He _definitely_ had to jump a train as soon as Olivier allowed him the opportunity if that would ever happen given his… circumstances.

 _No,_ he chided himself, _there’s no way that she intends to keep me locked up here forever. At the very least, once she, Miles, and Buccaneer are gone, I’ll be free to leave._

He couldn’t ignore the way that his heart twisted at the mere thought, though. The three had grown on him like overly careful parents, monitoring his every move yet allowing him just that little bit of leeway that he needed in order to retain his sanity.

… They probably did so to retain their own sanity and safety, as well, admittedly. There was nothing that he could do about how they’d found him in his emergency defense state, though, so bygones would have to be bygones. They seemed to trust him at least a little more as a person, though, now. At first, he’d definitely been dancing on a fine wire, though there was nothing that they could do short of trying and probably failing to shatter or even chip away at him to decrease his threat level.

The wire had become infinitely thinner when they’d found him researching human transmutation, the one theory of alchemy that Xerxes hadn’t been too ridiculously far ahead of Amestris on. The truth was, though, that Edan wasn’t wanting to attempt it, _not yet,_ he merely wanted to see if he could find something, some idea, that might assist him in searching for his brother.

Being a child of both Xerxian royalty and a Western fae as well, as King Hohenheim and Queen Trisha were father and mother to both of them, much unlike some of the other noble's children had been, Edan had no doubt that his mother’s curse had thrown Aql somewhere out of the desert, most likely into the West (though that was no guarantee) as well, upon whatever the _hell_ had screwed over Xerxes.

He could remember the sensation of his body’s cells transmuting into a golden mineral at once both flexible and harder than diamond, as well as the mental and physical numbing overload of thousands of souls blasting into him through his every bodily orifice, his own soul expanding to compensate for their pressure. He couldn’t feel them any longer, though he knew that that meant nothing; the dead weight of a rock in his soul, unbearably heavy yet not weighing on him whatsoever, silent, was all too tangible.

He pointed his fork at Riza, swallowing down a lump of steak, ignoring the thick gravy that dripped down the side of his chin.

“So,” he started, “you haven’t spoken much.”

She took a sip of her mug of black coffee, then set it carefully on the table.

“Tell me about Central.”

Both Riza and Ruth started, and he watched unimpressed as they barely restrained themselves from exchanging another glance.

 _Geez,_ he thought, _predictable much?_

“Have you never been?” Riza asked in turn.

It was a fair enough question, Edan decided.

“Nah,” he truthfully answered. “I’ve just been hanging here at Briggs for the past few years.”

It wasn’t a lie.

“Your accent doesn’t sound Northern,” Ruth commented, drawing his attention back to her.

His heart quickening in his chest, Edan faced a moment of panic. How was he supposed to respond to that? He couldn’t well out himself, and yet they’d quickly notice his lack of knowledge on Eastern Amestrian culture if he admitted to having been raised ‘more towards’ the desert. He couldn’t exactly fall back on Ishval, either.

“My family was from the East,” he replied, quickly stuffing his face with a dinner roll and then mentally cursing at himself for his stupidity.

_Got siken (1)! Dallama (2). Fuck! They definitely noticed that. Way to be obvious, King of None._

Both watched him with interest. Ruth laced her fingers together over her plate, resting her chin upon them, her eye sparking with amused interest.

“Is that so? Why’d they move North, and where are they now?” she asked.

He stared at her, a rabbit caught in her trap. Then, he gulped down the rest of his roll.

“Too deep of a question too soon,” he answered. “Ask again when you’ve become a level-Olivier friend and threat.”

Ruth blinked in surprise, then sat back up fully, letting out a genuine laugh. It was gorgeous, its wavelength not quite ringing, but reverberating into his ears and through him in a way akin only to how he’d imagined the waves of the ocean in his mother’s stories. It wasn’t high pitched like the townswomen’s, nor harsh like Olivier’s, but rich and somehow immensely satisfying. He decided that he definitely wanted to hear more of it.

“I’ll be sure to do so,” she assured.

He felt his face begin to grow hot at that, which meant that it was almost definitely red all over and burning, and for the first time since he’d met her he found himself at a loss.

 _Damn it, Mom,_ he inwardly shrieked, _what do I do when I’m pinned while not even mock-flyting? Shit!_

Suddenly, Edan felt the vibrations of a large figure sauntering up to their table from behind him. Thankful for the escape, tilted his head back, not surprised but relieved to see Buccaneer looming over him.

“Hey Buccaneer,” he greeted, simply.

Buccaneer grunted down at him, and he let his neck snap back into place just as a heavy hand descended to rest upon his head.

“So, you’ve returned,” Buccaneer said, glaring at Ruth across the table.

She nodded, smiling, meeting his gaze unflinching.

 _Impressive,_ Edan silently complimented, unfortunately only blushing more at the woman’s steadfast nature. There was something alluring about it, about their game, about how she kept Ed on his toes while _not_ being someone she looked up to as a paternal figure.

“I have,” Mustang replied, her voice fitting the dark maroon gloss on her lips all too well. It was like velvet, but if velvet were audible instead of material.

Buccaneer was silent for a moment, continuing to glare, before he sighed and began to turn away, patting Edan’s head twice. Edan’s head bobbed under the force of it.

“Whatever business you may have,” he instructed, “don’t laze around this time.”

Ruth ground the heel of her boot against the floor, her smile suddenly strained.

“I don’t laze, I rest,” she defended.

“No, you’re a lazy Colonel,” Riza reprimanded.

Ruth gasped in over-the-top falsetto.

“Lieutenant!” she scolded, her expression scandalized. “How could you? After I paraded Black Hayate across the streets of Central so well, nonetheless!”

“Ma’am, those were your working hours,” Riza cut back. “Black Hayate is a very patient, good boy, and he could stand to wait. I’m sure that even _Second Lieutenant Havoc_ is doing a much better job of watching over him and completing his work right now than you did.”

Ruth sputtered, clearly offended by Riza’s addition. Edan decided that he’d have to learn more about this Havoc character, as well as whom he assumed to be a pet of some sort, Black Hayate.

Buccaneer walked away, clearly finished with his introductions. Edan liked the man for how simple and… macho he made everything. Very few could pull of that which he did effortlessly.

Hesitantly, he reached down into his coat pocket, pulling out his journal and, more importantly for the moment, the folder from it. Then, he dropped the journal back in, setting the folder on the table and scooting his tray out of the way. He ran his pointer finger down the opening side to subtly let it know that he was about to open it, to refocus his mind to properly address its contents, before flipping it open.

The first page that he was greeted with was an overview of his Ruth, the second of Riza. That was all fine and dandy; he could read those later. On the page after, a single line legally bound him to discretion before he progressed through the documents. Uncaring, but intrigued, he flipped another page to see that their purpose for visiting Fort Briggs was finally listed.

 

* * *

  


**_Mission Statement Brief_ **

 

_Flame Alchemist Colonel Ruth Mustang and First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye are to be deployed under Major General Olivier Armstrong’s command to infiltrate Drachma and destroy any potentially progressive alchemical weapons, as well as gather all blueprints in order to hinder future construction._

_They are not to bring along any other soldiers, though they are permitted to utilize the assistance of any trusted Amestrian peoples across the border._

  
  
  


_More inside._

  


_Signed,_

_Fuhrer-President King Bradley_

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Well, then,” Edan breathed out. “You don’t read something like that every day.”

He glanced up at first Ruth and then Riza, then flipped the page.

“That’s a load of bullshit, though I understand now why Olivier assigned _me_ as your escort around ‘Briggs,’” he commented. “Also, ‘gather all blueprints in order to hinder future construction?’ _Bull-shit_.”

A bit of his stronger accent seeped into his voice on the last lilting word, and he quickly toned himself back down again, noticing their briefly perked heads and confusion.

“There’s no way that they’re not planning on using those blueprints themselves, with their history,” he scoffed. Then, he glanced up. “If I hadn’t been _here_ for the past few years,” he said, gesturing around him, “then I might’ve even trusted Drachma more with ‘potentially progressive alchemical weapons’ than Amestris. Also,” he continued, “‘trusted Amestrian peoples across the border?’ How much more blatantly can the military say ‘spies’ without using the actual word?”

Ruth gave a small laugh, which surprised him into not immediately refocusing on the documents.

“You shouldn’t speak so poorly of your own nation in a military Fort,” she gently berated him.

He waved her off with a hand.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say,” he dismissed. His eyes flickered up to meet her own, and he was glad to realize that with his focus now on the documents, his blush had receded. “At Briggs, we honor Briggs, the rest of Amestris’s military be damned. I don’t know the rules of etiquette for the rest of the nation, but I agree with ours.”

“It’s interesting how you identify with Briggs even though you’re a civilian,” Ruth remarked.

Edan merely shook his head, clicking his tongue.

“Not really. Again, I’ve spent the last few years here. It’s familiar, even if it’s _very_ different from home.”

Her eyes lit up again, intrigued, though she didn’t prod any further. He was grateful for the respect of his boundaries and thankful to her for recognizing that tiny social tick that so many just seemed to not.

The three of them fell into a comfortable silence as he read through the pages, though he could very easily feel the weight of Ruth and Riza’s eyes upon him, trying to gauge his reaction. It was a very direct mission on paper, though in reality, he knew that it definitely wouldn’t be, as navigating the mountains even on the side of the border that he was actually relatively familiar with by now was difficult enough. Drachma was almost entirely unchartered territory, the few maps provided in the folder seemingly drawn by the Amestrian spies sent in on seemingly random years before. There was definitely no way, though, that their departure dates had been unplanned.

Their arrival, his ‘final exam,’ he figured, was going to wake him up to the reality of the two nations in a way that he’d been waiting for for a long time.

He snapped the file closed, pulling a seemingly simple, thin black string from his pocket. Then, he placed the string atop the file and clapped his hands together, glancing up with a quick grin levelled at Ruth and Riza each before he slammed his palm against the file. At once the string wrapped around and through it, locking it so that only one who knew the circle that bound it could open it. Ignoring their surprised faces and wide eyes, he closed his own, then reopened them, focusing his energy into his fingertips as he traced its edges.

 _“Menen sê hlîep ymele unlûcan man oð n¯ænig pro sê ðâ ðe âcnâwan hnot sîn ongietenes,_ ” _(3),_ he chanted under his breath, his accent the lightest that he’d forced it be since casting the same curse upon his journal. Though he knew not the name of the language of which he spoke, he knew it to be of woodland fae farther West than even Amestris, and ancient as time could tell.

It’d been passed along to his mother by her mother, and hers before that, and once more her mother, as well. The ancient Western woodland faerie Empire, if what they had could legally be described as empirical (though it definitely was), had been a matriarchal society in its high. Scattered by the time of his mother’s birth, they’d been driven apart by humanity’s discoverance of alchemy and how to utilize it against them. Edward hadn’t actually noticed any besides whatever the _creepy ass mothermcfuggin_ shadow demon thing that from time to time decided to haunt Fort Briggs was.

If anything, he knew that that should be concerning to him, as _certain_ classes of faeries were notorious for becoming hyperactive when introduced to cold climates. However, he’d just been too busy toying around with alchemy to bother searching. Besides, the Triumbriggsrate had their six eyes trained on him intensely enough without him running around searching for what they believed to be mythical beings.

He hadn’t told them about the DNA that his mother had contributed to him, allowing them instead to tick off every one of his idiosyncrasies as gifts of his Xerxian Royalty blood.

Yeah, there was no way that King Hohenheim would’ve been able to get away with hanging upside down from the ledge just below the roof of Fort Briggs in negative fifty degree weather by his calves, and then leap over the fence four feet above it and keep himself steady landing on a patch of black ice.

Edan stood, pocketing the files as well, flashing his two charges a quick, charming smile.

“You two ready to hit the deck?” he asked.

They continued to stare at him. He frowned.

“Is something wrong?”

“Uh,” Riza squeaked, the sound entirely out of character for how she’d been acting through the early half of the day.

He quirked a brow, leaning forwards over the table, gesturing to his ear.

“You just performed a transmutation without a circle,” Ruth slowly articulated, blinking as though she couldn’t quite comprehend the thought.

Edan nodded, standing up straight again.

“Yeah, that’s normal. Is that all?”

“No, of course, that’s not all!” Ruth suddenly outburst. Heads turned in the direction of their table, a hush falling over the Briggs cafeteria.

Surprised at the response, Edan glanced out across the sea of soldiers. They seemed to be reacting to Ruth more than himself, which was at least a little comforting.

“You just performed a transmutation without drawing a circle! How is that normal?”

He blinked at her, now genuinely confused at how beseeched she was by such a menial task.

“What’s so strange about that?” he asked.

Surely, surely, even if any of the Amestrian texts that he’d read had never mentioned the Gate, they knew enough about it to make trades for the Truth. It was a simple and common practice amongst aspiring starter alchemists in Xerxes to make offerings and thus build up their ability to directly channel the Gate’s energy, taught as soon as they’d fully learned and understood the seven basic backlash wards.

She stared at him in shock, her eyes wide, as she stood, taking a step back.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked, her voice quivering, so quiet that he doubted the next table over could hear, even in the dead silence that now permeated the spacious chamber in place of its usual rambunctious chatter.

He smiled, turning back to fully face his body towards her, and put a hand on his hip.

“The single alchemist of Fort Briggs,” he answered, barely any louder than she, his words soft. He raised the hand he’d placed on his hip to beat his chest once, directly over his heart. “Edward Elric. Take care to remember the name.”

He glanced back down at the table, flickering his tongue over his lower lip, then looked back up, and gestured for the two to follow.

“It’s hardly evening, but I think that we’re all due some time to become better acquaintanced, given this upcoming mission that you’ve pulled me onto,” he reasoned. Making air quotes, he inquired, “Now, do you two ‘wanna go’ or not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) "Got siken!"  
> Turkish curse meaning: Ass fucker!
> 
> (2) "Dallama."  
> Turkish curse meaning: Dumbass.
> 
> (3) “Menen sê hlîep ymele unlûcan man oð n¯ænig pro sê ðâ ðe âcnâwan hnot sîn ongietenes,”  
> Very rough online Old English translation: Let not this scroll unlock for one who knows not already its meaning.
> 
> Well, guys, I churned this out between 4PM and 1AM on loads of coffee, and I'm actually feeling pretty proud of it, even if I maybe didn't create quite as much atmosphere as I intended. Fear not, for I shall continue to strive towards generating a unique feel for the fic.
> 
> If you have any thoughts, questions, or just wanna chat, feel free to leave a comment! I promise, I'm friendly! If you want to talk outside of Ao3, you can also contact me @hearthern on Tumblr.


	3. 0.2 Enkindle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FIGHT!
> 
> ... Also, Riza is a monster. One that's highly relatable, but a monster nonetheless.

Briggs Mountain, or more specifically, the Fort of Briggs Mountain, remained just as cold and unforgiving as Ruth remembered it. Its Queen, as well, seemed to have retained her harsh nature and poised prestige perfectly.

Ruth wanted to scald it; more importantly, however, she wanted to boil the young man before her, with his braid swinging from side to side behind him as he skipped towards the roof’s doors, to his roots, to sear right through his stranger’s anonymity and unearth his partially cloaked secrets. The deceit was one that she, herself was quite familiar with. Tell only half-truths and avoid all other discussions. Meant to present the illusion of simple, ground-level answers, it was quite commonly used in aristocratic society.

It was the potential of discovering more, catching hints through mobile activity, that kept her from backing down as she followed along, the temptation of seeing alchemy to the likes that she’d never before enkindling in her a desire to challenge him.

Sir Hawkeye, her mentor, had been the last man living to practice flame alchemy before she’d ripped its secrets from Riza’s back. It was an incredibly dangerous art, and one not to be taken lightly, which all practitioners had to be aware of. Yet, Edward had acted so casually about it, which would have left her in doubt if not for his circle-less transmutation.

The suaveness in his every graceful, if still jerkish, movement left her wondering if sparring with such an unknown was a good idea after all. However, as they’d left, whispers had begun, and now behind them trailed a large group of fifty or more soldiers, all staring ahead at she and Edward with hungry curiosity, eager to watch her fall.

“There’s no way that the Flame Alchemist can beat _our_ Ed,” one bragged, another following up quickly with:

“Oh, yeah. I’ve seen Ed sparring without alchemy; even if only Colonel Mustang’s allowed to use it, he’s got this in the bag. She just _stands_ there and blasts.”

“Utterly useless,” a third voice agreed.

The group began to laugh. Ruth clenched her fists, seeing Riza stiffen in the corner of her right eye.

Whatever. It wasn’t as if she was surprised at the Briggs’ soldiers bias. Besides, if she kept listening, she might even be able to pick up more information…

Just then, unfortunately, Edward kicked the door open. Caught unprepared and unexpecting of the cold blast that suddenly cut through her every garment to freeze her skin stiff, Ruth jolted.

Her step, however, remained steady, refusing to betray her despite her inner questions and momentarily faltering attention.

Edward turned back towards her, spinning on his right heel, allowing his left leg to go stiff as he swung it through the air before planting it on the ground, removing his hands from his pockets. He stood there for a moment, staring back at her, his golden gaze knowing as he ascertained her thoughts. Then, slowly, as the heavy wind blew thick heaves of snow into the hall, white billowing just around him, an unmistakable, if only a little too wide, predatory grin spread across his face.

He was an image to take in, even as she continued walking towards him, evenly schooling her expression to show interest but none of the apprehension racing through her veins. For just a second, time seemed to slow; as he moved to allow her passage first, turning his body away, the sun angled perfectly behind him. Yet, even so, and with no light nor reflective elements before him, his light golden eyes seemed to glow just like that fiery ball of light above them.

Then, she breezed past, her shoulder just barely brushing against his, and his grin faded to a smirk.

She didn’t need eyes in the back of her head to feel her Lieutenant’s inward cringe.

 

“All right, then. Riza will ref.”

Edward shifted towards the woman, giving her his best award-winning smile, before asking:

“If you will, please repeat our instructions before we begin.”

The soldiers of Briggs had taken to standing around in grounds or leaning against the walls between towers, observing with what now only sounded like hushed murmurs in comparison to their boisterous mocks from before.

Between the two competitors, Lieutenant Hawkeye cleared her throat, pulling the drawstring to her royal blue coat tighter. Light blue fur from within her hood clung to her neck and face, doing its best to keep her warm.

Ruth looked away, let out a sigh of sympathy, but before she could feel any more sorry for dragging her poor subordinate out for any longer, Riza raised her chin and began to speak.

“Edward Elric, unofficial alchemist of Fort Briggs, and Ruth Mustang, Flame Alchemist,” she addressed, side-eyeing each in turn. “For the duration of this match, the two of you are bound to using only flame alchemy and your own combat skills.”

Ruth huffed, raising her eyes to meet Edward’s, her fingers tingling in of her gloves as her heartbeat sped up in excitement. Even if the boy could transmute without drawing a circle, she knew logically that she had the fight in the bag. Really, if she thought about it, she filled in calculations for her basic flame controlling circle while fighting anyway, and seeing how well she knew it, there couldn’t be too much difference between his clapping for a physical ring and her already having one at the ready.

 _I’ll show this kid what flame alchemy is and how it’s most effectively done,_ she inwardly thought.

Despite the confidence that she allowed herself to show in the slight upturn quirk of her lips, the boy across from her only continued to grin, lowering and widening his stance for increased balance and uptake.

If she somehow lost in this, she knew that she’d never hear the end of it. Not from the Briggs soldiers, not from Riza. The boy that she was fighting looked hardly old enough to drink, let alone to have mastered the art of the flame.

 _But,_ her brain interrupted again, _he_ can _perform alchemy without a circle._

Refusing to let herself appear intimidated, for _surely_ she could pull off his clapping circle herself if it came down to it, she raised her own chin, staring down her nose from four yards away.

He locked his hands together in front of himself, one hand wrapped around a fist in a mock of a pose that she’d seen countless Ishvalans perform for one another before rushing off to fight.

She frowned.

_Screw you, too._

She supposed that he had mentioned his family coming from Eastern Amestris, after all. However, he’d also referred to her as merely _Flame_ just after realizing who she was...

Riza gave each of them a pointed glare before stepping back and out of the way, retreating back to where one group of Briggs soldiers stood. Then, she raised her black whistle to her lips and blew into it.

Ruth didn’t give the boy a minute to think, instantly snapping the fingers of her ignition glove and using her other to blast what first appeared to be a tiny spark towards him. A deafening crack reverberated through the air, red-hot fire bursting in a massive ball before her. Black smoke whipped about both herself and the soldiers, blown by the wind, and she raised a hand to cover her mouth on instinct, keeling over a bit to avoid breathing it in.

A little worried that she’d grilled the man, she took a step forward. There was no sound but for the mixture of confused and awed _ah_ s of the soldiers behind her. She took another step, reaching down to feel for his body….

Instantly, she realized that she’d miscalculated. From above, a kick aimed backwards knocked her breath away, Edward’s hard heel directly impacting her spine. Instantly, she crumbled, forced to the ground as his full weight pinned her, his butt slamming onto her back before he leaned down as though to use her head as some sort of pillow.

_The nerve…!_

She snapped her fingers again, a lash of white-blue immediately caught and carried astray by wind whipping around to scald him. She smirked at the ground as he bolted off of her immediately, throwing himself in a roll out of its way. Not missing a beat, she stood again, ignoring the thunk of pain in her back to unleash a hail of blasts towards him.

Somehow dodging every single one, but always remaining _teasingly_ close, he yelled, “Is that all you’ve got?”

She smirked, finally working up enough energy inside of her to step forward and enjoy herself.

“I should ask you the same!” she called back. “You haven’t made a single offensive move of your own. Do you really know flame alchemy, or do you simply know how to dodge?”

His lips twisted down into a frown, before turning up again, into another razor-sharp grin. He took a step backwards, bending his forwards knee and leaning down. She’d only just managed to raise her eyes before he was suddenly directly before her, his face mere inches from her own. She pulled back her thumb, and in one slick movement, he’d thrown himself overtop of her, hands planted on her shoulders. The fire from the blast she’d issued remained in place, moving only slightly up and forwards, but otherwise maintained.

_Shit! How the fuck?_

A hand shoved against the small of her back, pushing her towards it.

Digging her feet into the snow, she whipped to the left, leaping aside and leaving him to stumble towards it instead. He immediately fell backwards, his hands pushing himself under it before he seized it, clapping his hands and _thrusting a fucking arm right into it, what the fuck_ , allowing it to travel along his coat, charring the thick material.

Then, he pushed himself off of the ground again. Her eyes widened as she stared at him, his shoulders and body swaying fluidly as the flames of his coat traced along his arms. Then, he dragged his body into a backwards lean, throwing his arms out to the side before grinning, all teeth, and clapping his hands together. Instantly, the flames tugged away from the material of his coat, gathering into a ball at his fingertips before spewing towards her.

She leaped out of the way just as the blast slammed into the gate behind where she’d been standing, brutally breaking it away, leaving it to fall down the steep walls of the fortress to the ground below. She stared, shocked.

_What the fuck?_

What he’d done, without any thought of punishment from the Major General-- who was he?

Her eyes narrowed, as he deftly sprinted on his toes across the snow to where she stood, shoving back and out of the way as she observed his movements. The perfect, acrobatic maneuverability he displayed as he moved around with three feet of snow on the roof couldn’t be possible; it just _couldn’t_ ….

But it was. It was, and now Ruth had to somehow defeat it.

To test his defense, she snapped her fingers again, sending this time a wave of fire towards him. Edward didn’t bother trying to dodge, this time, seeing that she’d taken a step closer in figuring out his game.

If anything, as he clapped his own index finger and thumb together, creating a circle much like he’d done with his hands before, his now half-closed eyes denoted that he was _satisfied_ with her progress.

Ruth only had a second to dwell on the fact before her own wave of fire swung around right back at her. She threw herself aside, hitting the snow and holding her ignition glove close to her chest to keep it from getting wet. She grit her teeth, immediately pushing up on her elbows to keep moving.

After all, he never stopped.

He was toying with her; a cat playing with a mouse before it went in for the kill. Of that, she was certain. But, the question was, how? It was clear enough that he was using alchemy to redirect her own calculations and aim her offenses right back at her, but she didn’t understand how he avoided alchemic backlash while doing so. Incorrect circles caused dangerous enough reactions; playing with fire, and making _two_ circles on top of that, was outright insane and guaranteed to ensure explosive, uncontrollable reactions.

However…

She dodged another attack of that same fiery wave, this time leaping over it as it ghosted the snow. That first explosion, she decided, must have been his tester, his warm-up. He wasn’t making entirely new circles and laying them thick over her own instructions but adjusting that which already was, implementing his own will as further script within her own.

To do that, he needed to have a greater understanding than even herself of both general alchemy and her own circles.

Together, his circle-free transmutation and now fighting style proved such, and there was no way that she could ignore it.

“Are you sure that I don’t know pyro-alchemy, Flame?” he asked, finally, _finally_ blowing her flame off of his coat and allowing the wave to die down just above his right hand.

_Pyro-alchemy?_

Perhaps it was merely due to her well-known nature that all around her called it Flame Alchemy, but nonetheless, she found herself offended by his terminology.

She glared defiantly in response, taking a step to the left. Then, she snapped her fingers again, whiplashing three strings of fire straight through his coats. He leaped back, deftly landing his toes on the fence before lowering the rest of his feet down to stand flat-footed. Her eyes widened.

There it was, again, but this time even more impossible. It had thrown her mind through loops since he’d practically waltzed into the General’s office, her further observation through their match only heightening her cutting inability to understand. His balance was unnatural, uncanny, and unreplicated by any other that she’d known; now, she knew for certain that it was more than just his mere self-assured nature peaking her apprehension.

 _But_ , she then realized, she had seen someone with such a balance before. He’d given off the same, inexplicably wrong vibes as Edward, though with an additional cruelty that Edward had yet to display. The Crimson Lotus Alchemist, Solf J. Kimblee, despite fighting in a different style, moved with the same unmistakeable fluidity that Edward was currently demonstrating.

He glanced down, seeming to realize where he was standing, but appearing no more concerned by it. His eyes rolled back up to gaze into hers, and he tipped his head to the side, canting his chin down. She glanced downwards, away from his face, to see his thumb and index finger forming another circle.

A heavy blanket of snow hit her from above, knocking her forwards, down into the snow. She gasped out as the cold seeped into cloth- _wait, no,_ she panicked _\--_ those were her ignition gloves--!

Then his legs outstretched as he leaped towards her, the bottoms of his black boots visible as his toes pulled upwards. Her heart stopped as she watched his hands rise. The wind blew heavy, gusting his hair over his eyes, blocking her ability to read into his expression. A single, quiet clap sounded from above. Something rung through the air, though not as sound- no, everything was silent.

Her heart pounded in her chest. Just in front of her, an amber light flashed, a ball of highly condensed heat roaring towards her as she pushed upwards.

It had been a mistake to move upwards from the ground.

Useless, her body ripped upwards from the snow, flung backwards by the impact of an electric pressure that didn’t burn. The ground disappeared from under her feet, _everything_ disappeared from under her feet; only bright white below. Then, a solemn grey wall rose before her.

With a startled shout of no word in particular, she realized,

_I’m falling._

 

Ed breathed out slowly, relieved, before throwing back his shoulders and cracking his knuckles. While Ruth hadn’t been quite as talented as he’d been lead to believe, and the Briggs soldiers had certainly been right in their murmurings about her not faring well in physical combat, she had pulled a trick out of her sleeve that he hadn’t been expecting.

Her methodology for creating fire and controlling it was surprisingly simplistic. Honestly, he was surprised that _children_ hadn’t found it out.

The Lieu- no, _Riza, damn, these Amestrian military freaks are getting to me_ , rushed towards the second gap that they’d left in the fence, throwing herself down to peer down steep walls. She gasped, and Edward ran forwards.

 _“Are you stupid?!”_ he yelled, grabbing her by her jacket and throwing her back in case Ruth had issued another blast.

No such item came. Perhaps Ruth had miscalculated?

“Ruth!” Riza yelled, ignoring him and throwing herself before the break again.

He stared over it at the sky before himself, waiting, extending his senses to feel for coming heat. He waited. He waited a little bit more.

Something sickly rose up in his gut as Riza rose, banged her fist against his leg, sobbing.

No longer able to ignore her or Ruth’s lack of reappearance, he chanced his fate, peeking down the wall to see the Colonel still falling.

It didn’t look like she was even _trying_ to remove her coat or make any sparks to slow her fall or even possibly ascend. Rather, she stared upwards in shock, her narrow dark eyes stretched wide in shocked panic, meeting his own from halfway down the fort’s wall.

 _She doesn’t know how to save herself_ , he realized. Then, as that thought repeated itself, he stiffened, bristling before launching himself off the side of the Fort.

Immediately, gravity pulled against him, and he allowed it, digging his toes into cold stone to force himself down faster and faster, gaining speed until he was running and leaping towards the Earth, using its own tug and then surpassing it. He unclasped his coat’s buttons as he accelerated his own plummet, kicking off ever harder with each thrust downwards.

Tilting his upper body down, he stretched out his arms, grabbing onto her shoulder with one hand to pull her into himself. Instantly, one arm wrapped around his neck; the other, his chest. Then, he slammed the fingers of his other hand together, simultaneously drawing her in towards himself and draining the water from her ignition glove.

“Spark!” he yelled.

She stared at him, dazed and confused, before accepting her order. Her fingers snapped, though the look on her face showed no more understanding.

As soon as the tiny flare glinted between them, he slammed his fingers together again, spreading his arms so as to catch as much heat as possible just below his coattails. Then, with only a brief glance upwards to judge that he _definitely_ wasn’t going to bother trying to make it upwards again, _that would be an_ entirely _pointless waste of energy,_ he pushed his foot off from the wall, throwing the both of them outwards through the air.

 

With as much grace as he could muster at such a high speed, he landed the two of them on the ground, skidding forwards on his toes and falling onto his back. Ruth’s arms tightened around him, her fingers grappling with his thick clothes, her grip life-threatening as she buried her face into his chest.

“Wha-what the fuck was that?” she screamed.

He raised his knees, pushing himself back up with his arms and trying to scooch back. Her arms around his neck and back held him in place, refusing to let go. It was then that his genius mind realized, _shit, I probably just traumatized her._

Well, so much for making an impressive first impression.

“I could ask you the same,” he tried to counter, even as his inner Aql practically screamed at him to _not_.

He gently gripped the hand of the arm that she’d slung around her neck, removing it and laying it on the ground before doing the same with the other. Immediately, she rewrapped them around him, pushing him back down into the snow again with her upper body.

“What the fuck?” her muffled voice cried. “What the fuck?”

Her distressed reiterations continued for what felt like forever. He lay back, listening, as she reiterated her perturbation.

Finally, she seemed to regain her sanity.

She slowly pulled back, staring upwards not at his face, but at the massive Fortress a mere two yards behind him as it loomed over the both of them. Following her gaze, he could just barely make out a crowd of figures standing at the edge of the fence at its rooftop, some pointing down at them.

He dropped his eyes to see hers staring into his own, scared, pissed, and stupefied all at once.

“Who-,” she demanded, only to cut herself off. “No, _what_ the fuck are you?”

He looked away, pointedly ignoring how she lay up against him, right between his legs.

“Edward Elric,” he quietly answered.

She shoved him further into the snow, subjugating his body entirely, wide-splayed fingers holding him down by his chest.

“No. I asked what you are,” she corrected, glaring death down upon him, her body still shivering despite her calmed, though unfightable tone.

He blinked up at her, her image recalling to mind that of another, much younger girl. A girl with the same face, but more cheerful; a girl with long black hair in plaited loops all around her head, with similar purple-glossed lips. He found himself instantly struck by their similarities.

 _Daitan?_ he wondered.

It was a non-negotiable truth, though, that their physical appearances were uncanny. _Perhaps_ , he decided, _they’re related_.

Feeling Ruth’s shaking increase, he slowly raised his arms, pulling her flush against himself in a comforting hug. She instantly recoiled, writhing to break free, forcing herself out of his arms and falling backwards into the snow, breathing fast at the gravitational shift of the movement and its similarity to her fall mere seconds before.

“Don’t- don’t _do_ that,” she ordered.

He sat up again, confused, staring at her, his golden eyes wide. She, too, sat up, unable to bear the sensation of laying on her back on a hill sloping _down_.

“Don’t touch me. What- what are you?”

Her voice was once more accusatory, and his heart panged in his chest, reminded of how Olivier, Miles, Buccaneer, and _-that’s pain don’t think of him, too, don’t do it-_ had first reacted to him.

Her eyes met his again, and this time, he didn’t look away. Instead, he stood up, cautiously holding out a hand. Her eyes flickered up to it warily, before she accepted, allowing him to assist in what was truly she pulling herself up. Her body continued to shake.

She closed her eyes, then forced them open again, looking around herself as to make sure that she was truly on the ground and not still falling or otherwise dead. Then, her main priorities apparently sorted, she formed her hand into a fist, holding it out towards him.

“How did you do that?” she asked, plainly, her voice that too-calm lie again.

He frowned.

Seeming to take that as him being unable to comprehend her question, or perhaps due to her impatience, she gestured up at the Fort.

“You influenced my circles. How?”

He blinked.

“That’s not something taught or learned in a day,” he slowly answered, taking a step back.

She took a step forward, her mask continuing to slide back into place.

He hated politicians.

“We’ll have plenty of time in Drachma. Rather, then, how did you catch me?”

“I just heated up the air under my coat and let it the warmer air slow us a bit….”

“And your balance, in the wind and on the edge? You danced over three feet of _soft_ snow. How?”

His frown strengthened, his face tightening. His eyes gleamed in the sunlight, once more strangely light, not golden brown but _gold_ , fascinating and, Ruth decided, almost creepy, feeling out of place.

He opened his mouth as though to answer, and the main doors of the Fort swung open. He turned, shifting his body in front of hers.

Over his shoulder, she saw General Armstrong and Major Miles standing just inside, Armstrong glaring out at the both of them.

“Children are warned away from playing with fire in the Fortress,” she hazarded. Then, she raised a hand, jerkily ordering the both of them forward.

 _Children aren’t allowed in this Fortress_ , Ruth mentally corrected, staring at Edward’s braid from behind.

Regardless, both obeyed, Ruth taking only a few seconds longer than Ed to begin her trek back and up.

 

* * *

  

A warm bath was, in Ruth’s vocalized opinion, more than called for.

However, much to Edward’s amused chagrin, rather than allowing her such a novelty, the Major General had called Lieutenant Hawkeye down to join she and Edward.

He was a bit surprised to see that the woman appeared more shaken than Ruth, herself.

“You two must be close,” he remarked, as he drove the two of them out and away from the Fortress.

It was a very suddenly decided-upon mission, a last-minute ‘punishment’ that he knew was meant more to bring the three of them together better and make up for the catastrophe that their sparring had ended in than to truly punish them.

Behind him, Ruth sighed, leaning back in her seat. Though her arms were spread across the entire row, one leg laid neatly over the other; overall, her position denoted clear, clean-cut authority, simultaneously closing her off while leaving her ready for any incoming attacks. She raised her brow, seeming quite aware of it.

“Riza’s father was my master back in our early days,” she answered, pursing her lips.

Ed refused the urge to whistle, understanding that she was unwilling to offer any further explanation for the moment. He did figure, however, that there had to be more that the two were withholding. That was okay for now, though. He didn’t expect the three of them to be all buddy-pal by the time they crawled into Drachman soil the mere following morning, after all.

 _Still,_ he thought, admittedly a bit vexed, _Olivier could’ve given me more of a heads-up than that._

The woman had over the years grown to be a sort of paternal figure for him, perhaps less personally a teacher, always making sure that he was aware of Amestris’ political state and making him memorize maps and learn names. He knew Drachma as well as its exploration maps had been returned, knew every tiny town in Amestris as well as its most prominent business, and knew all important names from the last millennium, approximately when Xerxes had disappeared.

Admittedly, there were far fewer names the further back that she’d taught him.

That was quite alright, though, as he could guestimate with fair accuracy what all lead to different actions and courses of history. He’d had eighteen years worth of training in doing so, after all.

“I’m sorry for knocking you off the roof,” he tried, instead.

She huffed, glaring into his eyes through the rearview mirror. He looked back to the ‘road’ in front of them.

“I’m just glad that we were able to familiarize ourselves with each other’s methods of fighting with fire,” she murmured, after a moment.

Her eyes lost their sharp edge, though remained just as hard.

“If we keep training, I’m sure that predictability and the ability to co-operate using flame alchemy will come in handy if we’re forced to engage in combat with any Drachmans.”

Edward winced.

“I hope that it doesn’t come to that,” he said.

It was true; despite all of his training, despite his own history of having _killed_ assassins for what to him seemed to have only been a few years back, he loathed the idea of ever unleashing fire upon people. When he’d read about Ruth, he’d been both angry and devastated, held down from seeking her out only by Olivier’s boot on his lower back and sword at the nape of his neck.

She merely “mmph,”ed in response, turning away again.

Throughout the exchange, Riza had remained silent. It bothered Edward more than he expected once he’d realized that it wasn’t because she was simply naturally quiet. The look in her eyes when she finally reached he and Ruth at ground level… he shuddered to think of all the words she’d likely wanted to say.

So, he decided to engage her instead.

“So, Riza,” he conversationally began, lightening his tone quite a bit.

The woman stiffened.

“Have you ever been to Briggs Mountain before?”

She remained silent for a moment, then, passing a glance to Ruth, who merely continued to watch snow-coated pines pass by through the window, prepared her answer.

“No. I had no intention of becoming well-acquaintanced with the North, either, until the Colonel was called forth for this mission.”

 _Mission_ , Edward inwardly scoffed. It was an infiltration, a panic, and a betrayal to all of the citizens of Amestris who didn’t want Drachma to launch an invasion. While Amestris seemed powerful enough to ward them off with their alchemists, Briggs had none. After all, Olivier didn’t condone their usage of alchemy in the Ishval war. Edward, more often than not with the more that he learned of the nation, found himself quite fondly agreeing. Any who used it to harm humanity rather than to enhance living conditions didn’t deserve to wield the abilities that it granted.

Better than perhaps any other alive, however, he knew that their failing moral department wouldn’t change their ability. If they had the drive to learn alchemy, then they would be able. The effort would be rewarded, regardless of who the effort came from.

Sometimes, he couldn’t help but think that Truth was cruel, even if he knew that such thinking was utterly ridiculous. The Truth was a neutral being, a mitigator, and one who guided those who sought it to better themselves.

It took a moment for Edward to realize that Riza was still speaking.

“... straight into Hell, and I meant it. So, if you,” her warm, brown eyes met Edward’s, though something in them seemed to pierce them, “or any Drachmans prove to be a threat….”

She clutched at something in her side, and Edward remembered all of the military uniforms that he’d cleaned for quick money from the Briggs soldiers over the years. If their uniforms were made in the same way, then there would be a pocket right where her hand lay, perfect for concealing a handheld gun.

He swallowed hard, looking back at the road again.

“Understood. You’ll find no threat in me again,” he murmured. Then, as a second thought, he added, “Intentional or unintentional.”

If Ruth had any thoughts to voice, she stated none.

 

“My, my, if it isn’t our Edward! Come to enjoy the festivities?”

Ed couldn’t admit that he hadn’t been keeping track of the days, hadn’t even known that the Festival of Pine had befallen Briggs Mountain. All throughout the Amestrian North, towns would be celebrating. Even from the distance between where he'd parked and the main streets upon which the Festival always took place, three away, he could hear the sounds of laughter and music.

It was his _job_ to learn about Amestris, and Olivier would have his tiny ass on a platter if she found out that he’d forgotten.

Thus, he answered, “Of course! For what other reason would I come into town on such a day?”

He, Ruth, and Riza were standing just within the edges of town outside of the military jeep that he’d borrowed, having been stopped upon exit by the young woman who worked as a bartender at the tavern they’d parked in front of. She was a beautiful young woman with light brown hair pulled forth in a way similar to how Ed’s mother had used to style hers, before she’d… died.

It was quite the mysterious case, really; to the public and to Edan and Aql, the story was that she’d been born with an undiagnosed terminal illness that had been brushed off by her family and later came back to haunt her. To their father, however,...

Edan shook the thoughts out of his head, hearing the girl chuckle.

“Well, I do suppose that that’s fair enough,” she laughed. Then, she caught sight of Ruth and Riza stepping out of the vehicle behind him.

“Oh!” she gasped. “And who might these two women be?”

 

**_Discretion is highly advised._ **

 

Only half obeying the rules defined by the mission statement, as surely, if Ruth had stayed in Fort Briggs before then _someone_ in town would recognize her regardless of whether or not he introduced her now, he easily answered, “Ruth and Riza, two soldiers from down South in Central. They’re…,” he allowed a pause, giving the girl a smirk, “interesting people.”

She laughed again, before turning to Riza as she came around the car and held out a hand to shake. Riza took it firmly in her own, allowing a gentle smile to grace her face.

“I’m Naomi,” the bartender introduced, before giving Ruth the same handshake. “Naomi Weste. My shift just ended, so if you’d like, I can tour the three of you around town, get you some deals if you’re looking for anything.”

She leaned in, raising a hand to cover her mouth as she conspiratorially whispered, “There are some pretty good deals today and tomorrow, what with the festival.”

Edward rolled his eyes, turning away.

In turn, Ruth herself leaned in, placing her other hand on top of Naomi’s own. Her dark eyes glimmered as she thrust her shoulders back, pushing forth her chest.

“I’d love that,” she accepted, her voice suddenly much lower, yet still unmistakably smooth- feminine and sexy.

Edward whipped around, his the red flush on his cheeks most certainly not from the cold.

 _What the hell was that seductive tone just now?_ he wondered, staring at Ruth, trying not to ogle her in the position that she held herself.

She tilted her head up, raising her brows with a smile that just barely showed her shiny, white teeth.

He quickly turned away again.

“Have you visited Briggs Mountain before, by any chance? I feel like I’ve seen you…,” Naomi trailed off, studying Ruth’s face intently.

Rising up to her full height again, Ruth carefully answered, “Yes; alas, it was at least half a decade ago, so I’ve unfortunately lost my familiarity with the area.”

Naomi smiled again, studying Ruth’s face closely. Of whether or not she’d yet to discern her full identity, though, Edan was uncertain. Her eyes slid over to Riza, and she suddenly gave a little bounce, letting go of Ruth’s hands.

“Riza! Have you ever heard of the beverage ‘Hot Sour?’’ she asked, turning fully to the other woman.

Ruth frowned at Edward, as though to say, _look at this bullshit._

Then, suddenly, as though remembering something great, her lips turned upwards into a knowing smirk. It only took him a moment to catch on, and then he too was smirking, though he quickly hid his behind a cough into his glove, seeing as Riza could actually _see_ his since he was facing in her direction.

Satisfied, Ruth faced the other two again.

Hot Sour was a lemon beverage; put plainly, it was usually just straight lemon juice and water, boiled steaming hot above a fire. Local to the Briggs Mountains, and seemingly only ever drank there, it was only sold on two days of the year, though it could be made on any as long as there was someone who had it prematurely frozen.

As Naomi guided the three of them into the bar, Edan recalled his first experience with the stuff. Major Miles and a few friends had hauled him out of Dr. Hannah Grumman’s study, quite literally tossing him into a military jeep and taking off.

They’d actually stopped before this very cozy little tavern, he realized.

_What a coincidence._

… It was probably more so that the memories had subconsciously brought him back, made him seek it before they left to explore the town.

At any rate, Hot Sour was an incredibly accurate name for the beverage. With or without alcohol, it was both; straight up lemon water, incredibly sour to the tongue. When Miles had forced his head back and tipped his first sip of it onto his tongue, he’d thought that it was going to burn his taste buds right off.

… Which was why, of course, he’d immediately drank down the rest of it. After all, in Xerxes, painful food was good food; if it killed you, it must’ve been damn worth eating. With equivalent exchange taken into account, it made perfect sense.

He placed a hand over his heart, giving a silent grievance to the many who’d befallen oral injuries back in the day. They’d been fun times, and he’d had his fair share of many, being the crown prince who everyone had seemingly wanted to awe.

Yes, fun times indeed.

Now, though, he thought smugly, it was Riza’s turn. His entire party, aside from her poor, ignorant self, were in agreeance upon that.

In moments, the group of them had conjoined at the bar, having made their way with heavy bootsteps across the tavern’s wooden floors.

“Tauf!” Naomi shouted, surprising them all with her sudden loudness.

A skinny head stuck out of a black door in the corner before a bumbling man in a lime green button-down and black apron. The two bartenders behind the bar watched out of the corners of their eyes, the chatter of other patrons dramatically lessening.

“Scoop me a glass of Hot Sour,” she started, before pausing, looking over to Riza quizzically.

“Alcoholic or non-alcoholic?” she whispered.

“Non-alcoholic,” Riza immediately answered.

Naomi nodded, turning back to Tauf and continuing loudly again, “Non-alcoholic!”

“Yes ma’am!” the poor man practically screeched, fumbling over to the fireplace around and over which countless bottles of liquor lay.

Edan pulled out a seat for himself, only for Ruth to immediately plomp down in it. Annoyed, he grabbed another, scooching it loudly across the floor before sitting and lowering his head onto his elbows.

“That’s hardly gentlemanly, Edward,” Ruth commented, as she stared at the shelves of glass bottles lining the wall behind the bar.

“Don’t care,” he groaned.

“Tauf, make it four glasses!” Naomi ordered.

“Alcoholic?” he called back at her.

The two couldn’t have been more than nine feet apart from one another.

She turned her questioning gaze on them.

Ruth nodded her head expectantly, her eyes glittering, as if to say, _hit me up with the good stuff._ Naomi nodded back at her understandingly before glancing down at Ed.

“Alcoholic, definitely alcoholic,” he moaned.

Naomi turned towards Tauf again.

“Make three alcoholic!”

Riza sighed, pulling two seats out, one for Naomi and one for herself. The girl rewarded her with the flash of a winning smile, taking it gratefully.

“Trust me, you’ll enjoy it,” she lied.

Just then, four glasses slid over to each of them.

“Coming right up for my girl’s customers,” another waitress smirked, leaning against the bar.

Behind her, Tauf hurriedly scrambled back through the black door in the corner.

Edan lifted his head to take in the woman’s features. Her face was round, her eyes green, and her curly auburn hair had been pulled back into a loose ponytail. A myriad constellation of freckles dotted her face. She smiled, this time much more sheepishly.

“Amelie!” Naomi gasped. “You didn’t tell me that your shift started this early tonight.”

Amelie stood up fully, towering over the four of them.

“But of course,” she said. “I meant to surprise you on your way out, except that when you took the front entrance, I couldn’t.”

Amelie was tall. Tall, burly, and gorgeous, with large eyes and messy, natural brows over her hooked nose. The skin of her face appeared to be perfectly clear, her hair better maintained than even Ruth’s.

Edan chanced a glance at the woman to see her gaze sliding rapidly between Ruth and Naomi. He snorted.

“Better luck next time, because that one’s taken,” he teased.

Amelie leaned in towards Ruth threateningly.

“Say what, boy?” she asked Edward.

He took a gulp of his Hot Sour, wincing before setting it back onto the bar, swishing it around his mouth before swallowing.

Ruth grabbed onto his hand as he set it down, and he jumped a little; suddenly, she seemed much more enraptured with his person.

“He means nothing,” she laughed, looping one of her arms around his neck and leaning in close. “Edward’s just a ridiculous,” she pinched his neck between her fingers, hard, and he nearly leaped out of his seat, “thing. He likes to taunt people.”

Amelie stared her dead in her laughing eyes for a moment, and Ruth gulped, her nails digging into his hand. He turned it around, giving hers a comforting squeeze.

Then, the moment over, Amelie finally leaned back.

Edan chanced a glance over at Riza to see what she thought of the whole scenario, only to see her glass entirely empty. It took him a moment, and then he finally _did_ bolt up and out of his chair, pointing.

“Monster!” he cried out, staring at her with wide eyes. “How?!”

She glanced over her shoulder at him as though confused, then down at her drink. A look of understanding came over her face, then, and she smiled innocently.

Ruth burst out into laughter at the scene, full on cackling at him as she whirled on her seat.

“You actually thought that Hot Sour could affect the Lieutenant!” she chortled.

“You did too!” he accused right back.

Riza turned away from them, letting out a tiny sigh before shaking her head at Naomi.

“This stuff’s a beast!” Ruth defended. “A beast, but the Lieutenant is magical!”

“She must be, to survive her first time drinking that with no outwards response!”

Riza turned back towards them, leaving her empty cup on the bar.

“You two are ridiculous, it’s just hot lemon water,” she evenly stated. Then, an inquisitive look graced her face. “Now, if you were to add lime and ghost pepper extract, that might make it more intense.”

Edward balked as Ruth guffawed.

He crawled back into his seat, slumping against it and taking a swig from his own drink again.

“Absolute monster,” he mumbled.

Amelie and Naomi watched the scene with duo expressions of amused confusion.

 _Whatever. At least nobody’s at my throat anymore,_ Edan thought.

It was then that he realized that throughout their entire ordeal, Ruth still hadn’t let go of his hand. Curious, he flexed his fingers; she let go, pulling it back towards herself.

He wondered why he felt disappointment rising in his chest. Sure, she was cute, kind of like Daitan had been, but….

He immediately quashed that feeling. He had no time for romantic rebounds, let alone with _Amestrian military_ officials.

He chanced another glance at her, despite knowing full well that he shouldn’t. Her eyes were focused into her glass, though she’d yet to take a sip. Most likely, she was biding her time, waiting for it to cool off.

Her eyes met his from the side, and his heart stopped in his chest, a familiar flush working its way up his back and across his shoulders, the bridge of his nose.

He’d love to at least hook up with her, or something, but the thing was, Olivier had made it _very_ clear to him that Amestris wasn’t quite as accepting as Xerxes had been. A Queen, they might be able to handle, but a female King, who preferred being called ‘the Highness’ to ‘her’ or even ‘his’ highness? There were few in the nation who would accept that, she’d explained.

Suddenly feeling bitter, he raised the rest of his glass and downed it, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

Ruth frowned, reaching over to hand him a tiny piece of cloth, a napkin.

“Edward,” she scolded, “You could at least _try_ to be civil.”

He only grunted in response, looking away.

When had she decided to act so familiar? It must’ve been because once they entered the town, they needed to not seem like he’d thrown her off of the northern Fortress just an hour before their arrival and like the military wasn't ridiculously strict about their employees' behavior.

Culture up North was different from that of Central if what Olivier had taught him was correct.

Besides, he was plenty civil! He was a goddamned crown prince, trained in civility-- no, a King now, for the sake of the Truth!

Suddenly, a ruckus outside drew everyone’s attention, including the other customers at tables and further on down the bar. Heads turned towards the door; naturally, his turned the other way, towards the black door to the back of the tavern, where Tauf had retreated to.

The sounds of commotion continued; Ruth and Riza stood. He chanced a glance back, and out of the corner of his eye as he did so, he saw it: a red eye on the wall’s darker trim, just above the floor, dead in the center of an eldritch shadow trailing upwards, staring right at Ruth, unblinking.

 _Found you,_ he projected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Psssh, Ruth, you noob. Now you'll have to find another chance to prove yourself as the inarguable leader of the party.
> 
> ...There's a scuffle or something going on outside, isn't there? Maybe you should check it out.
> 
> \--
> 
> Now, to be honest, I feel like this chapter's a bit of a quality drop. It still accomplished all that I wanted it to, but... I don't know.


	4. 0.3 It Is

… Or rather, Edan _would_ have projected his thoughts if he were remotely decent at projections and the like. They, just as most direct-spiritual-contact inheritances from their mother, had been passed on stronger to Aql. Aql, who had the calm exterior that would’ve much better suited Kingship. Aql, who fixed the trouble Edan caused with an apologetic, quirky smile on his face. Aql, who negotiated the two of them out of trouble without resorting to pushing people down with the platform of his left foot. Aql, who-- _!_

“Fuck this forsaken state!”

The low, brazen shouting from outside was the only warning that Edan got before a tiny, high-pitched bullet whizzed directly past his head, breaking a green glass bottle behind him. He turned towards the door, only just managing to avoid a shard that pushed under his eye. Its sharp edge sliced through his skin. Hot and cold liquids alike dripped down over his ear, a horrible burning sensation sinking into his skin. He seethed, turning the rest of the way around to face the doors to the tavern.

“Ed!” Ruth yelled, holding out her arms in front of him.

Riza had already moved to stand against the wall just before the doors, both of her hands holding up shiny, black pistols. She glanced at Ruth, then her eyes met Edan’s, judging his state, and she whipped around the doorframe into the outer world, firing two warning shots.

“You fucking fools massacred an entire nation, an entire people, and while you did, you sat around sipping _milk_!”

Edan made to move, but Ruth grabbed onto his shoulder. He looked at her, his face incredulous, but she merely lifted a finger to her lips, gazing at the shredded left half of his head in concern.

Rolling his eyes, he batted her concern away, attempting to shake her hand off. She, however, held steadfast, though thankfully she did pull a facade over her worry. Harsh eyes turned to the doors and then towards him again as he began to move forwards. Her fingers squeezed painfully tight. Turning to look at her again her again, now mid-step, he frowned.

She gave a conspiratory wink before letting go. He glanced to the shadow on the wall behind her, but it was already gone.

Off-put and on edge, Edan dashed forwards, sliding his toes in his thick, leather winter boots as he broke beyond the tavern’s threshold.

 _Terrorists_ , his mind declared. _Armed terrorists._

With the sun in his eyes, lighting a halo of heavily-coated townsfolk gathered around two men and a woman, the situation taking place in the street became incredibly obvious. On the outskirts of the crowd, with a wide berth around her, Riza held her two shiny black handguns aimed at the three, each who faced in another direction, their eyes covered by heavy duty black mountain goggles, their hair white, their other features were entirely covered by rust red cloth. Handkerchiefs served as masks resting over their noses, concealing the lower halves of their faces.

He froze on the spot as one of them glanced over at him; it was the man who’d spoken.

“You, there!” he called out.

Heads turned towards Edan. His eyes widened, his heart skipping a beat.

“الرجل الذهبي! What have you to say of this nation’s sin?” (1)

Despite the anxiety pouring through his veins, when he spoke, his voice was smooth. He pulled himself forward, sliding smoothly into a relaxed yet controlled stance.

“Amestris has committed terrible crimes against humanity,” he began. “However, there’s naught that can be done to take them back now.”

The man sneered.

(2) “You speak like one of them. Should’ve known that you were one of theirs, بقايا.”

Edan stiffened briefly, offended, and his expression hardened. He took a step forward, and then another, pushing his way through the crowd. Behind him, Ruth snuck out through the tavern’s doorway. He paid her no mind, only absently tracking her movements at the same rate as those of the crowd members.

“You speak of business you have no dealings with,” he scolded. “Who are you to declare me بقايا? Who are you to comment about my actions?”

_Who are you to talk of Xerxes? Who are you? Who are you?_

He came to stand directly in front of the man, staring up at him, ignoring Ruth and Riza’s warning shouts.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The man fell silent, then glanced up to the sky. Following his gaze, Edan saw spirals of white clouds over the day’s dull blue.

Behind him, shards of wood and rubble spat towards the crowd as the tavern exploded. A scalding wave of air rushed about his body, and he whipped around, clapping his hands and ducking down before sprinting forwards, catching fire against his palms and dragging it in a stream to the snow at his feet. A quick glance to the right showed Ruth doing the same, though with an arguably less cool technique, merely flattening the flames to the ground to snuff them out.

He heard seven more gunshots from Riza’s direction, felt quick, light steps dashing down the street going left. Risking the danger of looking away from the fire, he turned his head to see the three running.

He grit his teeth, pulling the fire faster, before releasing to dash after them. He sprinted across the snow with his legs held high, refusing to let his feet sink into the deep, icy powder. His heart raced, his blood audibly pounding through his body. He could hear every word of every person he passed, each pathetically heavy, chugging, thunking step of his prey ahead of him.

They were slow, and he was fast. They sunk, while he skated. They were built to survive in the world, while he lived to dance across its edges.

The leftmost of the three glanced backwards through her thick black goggles. Through the dark lense, their eyes met. Hers, he could now see, in his further awakened state, were red.

He leapt forward, charging even faster as she grabbed the arms of the others, pulling them around a corner. His hand reached out to the edge of a red brick building, and he swung himself around it, throwing himself forward and skidding on his heels into the centermost of them. Instantly, he kicked his leg between theirs, digging his boot into their balls. It was the speaker. They let out a shout of pain, and before the others could escape he latched onto the backs of their necks with his hands, pushing the three down with himself on top.

A quick glance around let him know that they’d stepped into an alley, a dead end at that.

_Perfect._

The outside two thrashed under him, bending their arms backwards in their struggle to relieve his grasp.

“Don’t you fucking move,” he growled, glaring down with pointed pupils.

There was a sharp, inhuman edge in his tone. His forceful words demanded immediate obeying, and unaccustomed, they fell pliant. He sat there, on top of them, for a moment, breathing harshly as he struggled to get himself back under control. His fingers tightened and eased around their necks, twitching lightly. Finally, he let out a sigh and loosened his taut muscles.

“Why the _hell_ would you idiots fire into a bar with the Flame Alchemist? Are you fucking insane?” he cut out.

The woman on the left shuddered. The man on the right lifted his head a little to answer. Edan immediately shoved his face back into the snow.

Muffled, the man answered, “He has to face justice!”

Edan blinked, then sat up straighter. Something wasn’t right. His eardrums popped as something in the air crackled. The humans below him took no more notice than their sudden satisfied auras told.

“Yeah, yeah,” he dismissed. His attention was no longer on the three. He turned his head back to the street. “But, it seems that that’s not what you were after, was it?”

In an instant, he let go, taking to the same red brick building that they’d turned around. His fingers dug into clay, and he winced at the slight of iron bits that burned directly against his skin.

There were a lot more than three terrorists.

_No._

The three were a distraction. Their main interest was--!

Just as he began to push himself upwards, a pair of strong arms looped around his waist, dragging him back down. Shocked, he kicked out, but his assailant, that woman, didn’t budge. Pushing herself back, she yanked him from the wall, toppling the both of them over before rolling to pin him.

“Ona elde etmek,” she seethed. “Yarim!” (3)

 _She’s fae_ , he realized.

Not even half, but full fae. The woman, how hadn’t he noticed it before? She ran like a human, she looked like a human, but had spoken that language, had that hidden strength.

His pupils constricted. There was no need to hold back. He couldn’t afford to; he’d not the slightest clue as to just what abilities she held.

Twisting in her grasp, he raised his arm, pointing it downwards just aside from her major organs, and plunged it into her torso.

Instantly, she released him, shrieking into the cold air. He pushed himself up and away, dashing for the wall. This time, there was no resistance when he threw himself up it, pushing with his toes and fingers before wrapping a hand around the edge at the top and tossing himself over.

He took off across the building, leaping over gaps between roofs until he stood just above the tavern. Below him, confused and frightened citizens milled about amongst one another. Ruth and Riza, however, were gone.

 

“Ma’am!” Riza warned, grabbing onto Ruth’s arm to tug her back as a volley of bullets sprayed just before her face.

After Edward ran after the original three, twenty or so more had come from the opposite direction. Chances were that they’d hidden out in the forest encircling the mountain town. Now, though, it was evident that they didn’t intend to _stay_ hidden.

Ruth absently wished that they would’ve.

Unintentionally crushing Riza against the wall with her back, she shielded the woman to the best of her ability.

“Shit!”

The two were trapped, circled in from both ends of the street that they’d ended on. Suddenly, the very ground on which the two stood gave way. Ruth had one heart-stopping breath to take before both fell downwards. She felt Riza’s hands grabbing onto her shoulders before she fell for the second time that day.

The bright sky gave way to darkness, and a metallic panel swung upwards to block out the world above. Riza let out a pained gasp as her butt hit cold cement, the impact jarring. Ruth’s head knocked backwards into hers, though thankfully not with enough force to knock her to the ground.

The two were in a wide, dark corridor. No torches were lit along the walls, and no light seeped in to give them more of a clue as to where they’d ended up beyond what they’d seen on their way down.

Swallowing down her shock, Ruth bit out, “Lieutenant?”

From under and behind her, the woman flinched. Ruth took this as a good sign, trying to still her subtle quaking. Her body shook as she turned herself around, careful to keep in contact with the Lieutenant all the while.

“Where the fuck are we?” she asked.

Riza shook her head, then, seemingly realizing that there was no way that Ruth could see the motion, she answered vocally.

“Some underground tunnel.”

“And how do we get out of said tunnel?”

From above, the tinny sound of bullets splattering across the trapdoor that they’d fallen through provided both relief and reason to fear.

“I’m not entirely sure.”

Riza pushed herself upwards, gently taking Ruth’s face in her right hand as her left steadied her against the cold ground. Cold. Neither were wearing their gloves anymore, hadn’t since they’d been invited into that tavern for Hot Sour.

“Are you alright?”

Her voice was concerned.

Ruth paused for a moment, then nodded her head.

“I never want to fall again in my life, but that’s fine,” she assured.

Riza frowned, recognizing the wavering tone in her voice that let it be known that _no, none of this is okay_. However, she let it go for the moment, releasing Ruth’s face to instead grasp her hand, shifting out from under her superior to stand and help her to her feet. Ruth took her extended hand gratefully, pulling herself up with minimal effort for how shaken she truly was.

She didn’t let go after.

Metal screeched above them. They could stay in place and try to figure if it was worth waiting for either rescue or certain death, or they could take off in either of the tunnel’s directions to try and find another way out in the absolute dark.

Above them, the wearing of the metal fell silent.

There was no way that reinforcements could have already arrived.

Moving more confidently than she felt, Ruth turned to her left and took one step, then another, then took off running. Riza jolted behind her, before catching onto her plan and deciding immediately to follow. Not even nine seconds later, the trapdoor screeched again before it was yanked from its hinges, light shining down into the tunnel. Another volley of bullets shot around the vicinity that they’d just bene in, and hearing it, Ruth winced, knowing how quickly they would’ve been shot down had they stayed.

“Büyücü orada,” one of their attackers stated. “Find them!” (4)

“Evet!” multiple answered. (5)

Ruth squeezed Riza’s hand, quite possibly crushing it in her own as she picked up her pace, not daring to turn around. They had to find a way out of the tunnel, and they had to find it fast.

 

Edan dropped into another alley not far from where he’d started, then began his trek back to the tavern. It would do no good, after all, to make a jump down right in front of Amestrian civilians. At the end of the alley, a traumatized couple walked past him. He took in a breath, then called out.

“Excuse me!”

They ignored him, It was rude, but not unexpected after what they’d just witnessed.

“You two there! Did you see where the two military women went?”

They turned around. The eyes of both widened comically as they took in his appearance.

“You’re that ma-!” the woman started.

“Yeah, yeah, shut up about it, now,” Edan waved her off. “I need to know where the bluecoats went. Did you see?”

The two were silent, glancing quickly at one another, before the man answered him.

“They ran up third street, and that’s as far as we saw.”

Edan grinned, then took off, calling a brazen, “Thank you!” over his shoulder.

Third street was notoriously known for being the upper-class-most street of the town, the one with all of the high-end shops and restaurants that in his humble opinion had no right to be as ridiculously expensive as they were. It could be easily accessed from multiple other streets of the town, but didn’t tend to be particatory in any of the town’s festivities.

Though it may have been full of snobs, it was a much better place to run to than towards the festival would’ve been.

 _Blessed be you, Ruth._ , he silently prayed.

At least the Flame had the common sense to avoid dragging combat towards her own civilians.

Now, he took his time running through the streets. He still didn’t let his feet sink into the snow, instead staying at its surface to avoid hindering himself, but he did take the time to judge its imprints. All of his senses were still in overdrive, but not enough so to avoid muddling. Scents and sounds and information bundled together, overwhelming. He ground his teeth together, then relaxed his jaw and opened his mouth before clamping down on the tip of his tongue. Instantly, his body reawoke.

Third street was another seven streets down. Under him, under the snow, the ground was hard and frozen. Alleys and streets alike were open spaces to his sides, flickering past in blinks of the eye.

There, a dark green sign. Third street.

He swerved, diving to the right just as the last of ten figures jumped into the ground. His eyes narrowed. A thick iron square and about forty huge screws lay on the snow five buildings down. He dashed towards it, hovering over it in but three breaths. He didn’t have an excuse to fall into this state often. Now, however…

“Well, fuck,” he murmured.

Just beneath his feet, now that he had the incentive to check, he could _feel_ the give of the Earth to a long tunnel extending further than he could track it. He pointed his toes, sinking them into the snow to hit the cement sidewalk.

Ashamed in the back of his mind, he knew that he’d’ve never been able to overlook it if he’d sunken sooner.

He took in a shaky breath. Seven figures were running in one direction, three in the other. If the seven had a fae amongst them, of any kind, then…

Two more figures ran much further ahead. Without a doubt, they were Ruth and Riza.

Without a second thought, he dove.

 

Everything in the tunnels echoed. Every step, every breath, and every deafening, random shot that ricocheted off of the walls. They were fired at random, sometimes those aimed too directly forth coming dangerously close to making their marks on Ruth and Riza.. Though the hall of the tunnel was dark, it was also long. Ruth would almost say that it was straight, if not for the change in the echoes telling otherwise.

So, she and Riza proceeded as quietly as possible. Those behind fell through periods of astoundingly quieter silences as well, though each time they slowed. They, however, with the benefit of being the armed group, made far quicker progress, not having to fear so much as their targets.

Despite having pulled her gloves on much earlier, Ruth refused to use her flame alchemy. The bright light would immediately signal their precise location, and she had no doubt that it wouldn’t be long after until the two of them were shot down.

They were still trapped.

Suddenly, only slightly ahead, Riza stopped. She tapped her fingers twice against Ruth’s wrist. Ruth blinked, pulling herself hesitantly to a stop as well.

Two taps to the wrist meant left. Quiet as a mouse, they slipped to the wall. It was astoundingly far off for a tunnel. Honestly, the sheer size of the tunnel was astounding. It was ginormous in both length, width, and height.

Just when Ruth feared that they would crash face-first into stone, her foot broke through further air. She paused.

Surely, it couldn’t be a branch-off. After all, she hadn’t heard it in any reverberations whatsoever.

She didn’t dare to make a sound, especially if she dared to slip into this corridor and risk letting others know.

Somehow, she had the distinct feeling now that it wouldn’t matter whether she did or didn’t. Sound or no, the bullets constantly dancing about their forms always remained close.

Whatever the tunnel was, she definitely didn’t trust it to not expand from the North to Central.

Maybe that was an exaggeration, or maybe it wasn’t. Ruth didn’t _think_ that the tunnels could be that long, but just as an expression.

With fear drowning out her common sense, she truly hoped that they weren’t.

If they went through the tunnel, there was a chance that it might loop them back around to somewhere closer to where they started, and then they could break free. There was no telling if the trapdoor had been replaced. She hadn’t heard the sound of anyone new entering the tunnel, which could be either good or bad.

Either way, she had to make a decision. If Riza could find a tunnel in the dark that she couldn’t, then undoubtedly the sharpshooters behind them could as well. Though from time to time their shots seemed random, it was evident enough that at least one of them knew exactly where Ruth and Riza stood at any given moment. She just had to keep jumping and skudding and hope that they wouldn’t hit.

She elbowed Riza’s own elbow.

 _Skip it_.

Just as the two took off forward again, the group behind them began to run. In the time that she’d taken to consider her options, they’d fallen silent again, advancing as quietly as snakes through mud.

She closed her eyes and began to run, rolling her feet in a last-ditch effort to keep them quiet against the ground.

There was a loud, distinct, popping _bang_ and sharp, blowing pain exploded through her arm. She choked on her shout, falling part way forwards before catching herself on her left foot and continuing. Her mind blanked, sharp and hazy all at once.

_I’ve been shot. I’ve been shot!_

She’d known that it was coming, prepared for it, and it wasn’t the first time, either. It was, however, just as terrible and debilitating as she remembered.

 _Keep moving, you stupid, useless bitch!_ She inwardly screamed.

Riza gripped her hand tight, yanking her further forwards. She distanced herself, pushing away, just as several more shots spewed between them. She then threw herself back in Riza’s direction, pushing the both of them aside.

Something darker than the complete lack of light that they were in shouldered past, a shadow taking up the entire roof and walls of the tunnel. The seven on their trail screamed.

Both Ruth and Riza hit the ground, continuing to crawl forwards, unfortunately in the exact direction from which it had expanded from.

A low shriek echoed through the tunnels. Fast shots, more than either could count, bounced off of the walls. There were multiple machine guns in use. Ruth wondered where their pursuers had gotten them. The scream was cut short. Silence fell over the hall.

There were no more steps. Even the quietest had fallen silent. The tunnel was still.

A pressure weighed down over Ruth, but she kept her head down and her eyes closed. She nudged Riza’s foot twice with her own, warning her to keep still.

Several minutes passed. Finally, the pressure relented. Whatever it was fell back slowly, then raced away. Ruth’s ears popped.

Near silent footfalls slipped more than stepped towards them. There was a quiet gasp. Ruth assumed that they’d stepped into someone.

There was a pause, the sound only of air whipping around something, and then the still-quiet skud of toes landing on dirt. The sound was smooth, not even echoing in the tunnel, as prone to echoes as it seemed to be.

The person, as Ruth had judged it to be, continued forward. Finally, they stopped just behind she and Riza. A small flicker of light danced above them, and Ruth tapped her foot against the lieutenant’s thrice.

Moving at once, they rolled apart, staring upwards. The light, tiny as it was, hurt to see. It didn’t illuminate much, wasn’t bright at all, and undoubtedly was blocked to any others that could be following through the tunnel by the person’s form. Ruth still didn’t trust it.

Slowly and steadily, it rose, then brightened briefly just before a familiar face. Ruth’s eyes widened, and she surged upwards, grabbing onto the figure’s leg.

_Edward!_

After lifting a finger to his mouth, he extinguished the flame, then reached down, grasping at her shoulder. Presumably, he did the same to Riza. Then, he tugged upwards. Reluctantly, and only a little mistrustfully, Ruth obliged.

The three took off back through the tunnel the way that they’d come. Their movements were kept to a hush; no words were spoken. Not forty feet from where Ruth and Riza had dropped, a single body lay stilled on the dirt.

Ruth wondered what had become of the others. It was clear enough that that pressure, whatever it was, had probably killed them, but as for where they’d gone…

She shook her head. The three continued their march.

 

There was no way of telling time in the tunnel, but it certainly took a maddening amount before they’d gotten far enough that Edward seemed satisfied. He stopped them by grasping onto their shoulders again, halting before them. Then, they heard something like rubbing skips along the walls, and a bright blue light broke through the ceiling above them. Shards of silver metal cascaded upwards and outwards into an impossibly bright light.

Surely, there was no way that Edward had found the trapdoor out.

His figure, thankfully darker than the light above him, dropped to the ground. He clapped his hands, audibly this time, and the very Earth that they stood upon rose.

 

The light of the world was blinding, bright enough on its own and then reflected back into dilated, sore retinas by white snow and ice. Sirens wailed as frantic medics tended to the wound on her arm, something with a kinder word than ‘pliers’ digging in to retrieve a bullet. Ruth bit down on the block of wood supplied to her, the pain of her tearing tissues and broken bone now stronger with her adrenaline wearing off.

She took a long drag of some opioid stick to fog her senses as much as possible while they wrapped it up.

How terrible, it was. Her beautiful tricep brachii, now marred. She’d still be sent out of country, too.

How terrible.

In reality, though, such was a lesser worry. It wasn’t quite the least of her worries, as the upper class of Amestris that she’d come back to surely wouldn’t respond well to her injury, but…

What the fuck had been in that tunnel? What was that? How did Edward get up to the ceiling? Where had he come from? Why was he so quiet? How had he found them? She’d been shot!  What were the tunnels for? How long were they? Where had Edward chased the original three attackers to? Were they after her, as she was the flame, or something else? Their hair was white. Were they Ishvallan?

A seemingly infinite number of questions raced around her mind. She wanted answers, but she doubted that she would be immediately privy to them.

No, rather, it seemed that she would have to wait and then dig them up when and wherever she could later. For now, she had to act her part and get to the safest location known.

That meant returning to Fort Briggs and facing Major General Armstrong again.

She bit back the well of negative emotion that such stirred up. Another failure of her making at Briggs.

She’d been saved by a man barely past his childhood.

_Useless, useless._

Ruth Mustang, the Flame Alchemist, was useless.

 

For as disastrous as their little trip had been, Edan couldn’t muster a scowl as he watched pine trees pass by. Not long after Ruth had been patched up, Miles and a squad of four had arrived. Now, he himself was driving them back, glancing up every so often into the rearview mirror to eye either them or the trees at the edge of the road behind.

“So, you say there’s a tunnel running under the town?” he asked.

Edan nodded.

“Yeah. I don’t think that it’s running solely under _this_ town, though, if you get me.”

Miles didn’t glance at him. After a moment, he replied, “I do.”

“Would you two stop doing that?” Ruth suddenly snapped.

Riza winced. Edan whipped his face in her direction.

“What?”

“That! ‘Do you get me?’ You Briggsians are so obvious about something going on that it’s ridiculous, yet you’re not doing anything to let the rest of us know what’s going on. I’m sure that the Lieuteant here is just as curious as I am. You’er an alchemist at Fort Briggs, barely more than a teenager, a child, at that, and you can somehow survive and land well falling down the entirety of the Fort! Then, you somehow navigate a straight tunnel perfectly back to your entry with _absolutely no light_ whatsoever to speak of.”

There was a soft, rough sound coming from Edan’s throat, and Ruth stopped as she heard it. It was quiet, but her eyes widened nonetheless, as she realized that the motherfucker was fucking _growling!_

 _“Are you fucking growling at me?”_ she accused.

He stopped, glaring at the head of Miles’s seat.

“You were! You were growling at me!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he complained, leaning against his window. “Just _shut up_ . If you want to talk about what just happened, then let’s talk about what happened. For starters, who killed that man? Was it you? Because alchemy’s pretty bright, and I only saw darkness ahead in that tunnel. Did you shoot him? Or rather, _what_ was darker than _the truth-damned tunnel with no light_?”

 _Truth,_ Ruth was getting on his nerves. Yes, she _did_ have a right to be curious. _Yes,_ she _had_ been shot. _Yes,_ he’d probably be acting the same damned way if he were in her shoes. However, they were all stressed out and curious and _left in the dark_ at the moment. She could chill.

She finally turned her head to face him. He side-eyed her.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. Her voice was suddenly again steady.

“I don’t know,” she repeated. “There was a pressure, and darkness, and their screams. It remained for some time, and then it left. It left as you came.”

He brought up a hand to rub at his eyes.

“I was afraid of that.”

“Why?”

No more words were spoken for the duration of their drive back.

 

“So, you’re telling me that a bunch of Ishvallan terrorists ganged up on you before you even made it to the festival, then drove you two into some tunnel where they were inexplicably killed off, while Edward let three others go in order to find you two?”

The Major General’s voice sang with her condensation, her eyes laughing, mocking, and serious all at the same time.

“Yes,” Ruth answered.

The woman appraised her with sharp eyes. She turned to Edward.

“You let the three go?”

“Yes,” he also answered, before cutting through with an additional, “but, there’s something else about them that might interest you.”

“And that is?”

He took a painstaking breath, his eyes rolling over Ruth and Riza before he painfully pressed out, “they seemed to be of… a _correlation_ to my ability.”

A thin, blonde eyebrow quirked. The sky outside of the windows behind General Armstrong was dark, with billions of brightly lit stars shining and twinkling in an almost _otherworldly_ manner,

She looked back to Ruth and Riza.

“The two of you are dismissed.”

Ruth jolted.

“But, Major Gen-!”

“No,” Olivier cut her off. “This has nothing to do with you, Colonel. It’s not of consequence to our nation, and thus you are exempt. Go.”

The heavy thunk of closing doors spoke louder than any words that Ruth might have said.

With his own lack of clear understanding, Edan was left alone to elaborate.

 

* * *

 

A King mustn’t always be honest with his people, his advisors, or his own. This was a lesson that had been drilled into Edan’s mind since he was old enough to understand words themselves.

The Kingdom of Xerxes was great. Standing tall in the dessert, a beacon of brightness and knowledge, safety and relief amongst hot, dry sand. Pulling water from the depths of the Earth using alchemy, year-round its crops remained lush and green. Most citizens kept busy, always charging forward with ideas or tasks or _anything_ to do, to accomplish, to fill their lives with new information and projects.

Under King Van Xerxes, the land thrived.

That didn’t mean that the land understood just how it thrived in wake of losing a great powering force of its past.

Such was highly investigated by civilians and nobles alike, though none came to any solid conclusions. Countless theories were made. Edan and Aql themselves took interest.

It was only after the third leaving of Daitan of Xing that they decided to really, truly dedicate themselves to the task. It was a betrayal to their father, and to their people, but it was a question that had to be answered.

“Brother, I don’t think that we should-,” Aql began.

Edan cut him off with a finger over his lips, smirking as he leaned against a pair of large golden doors. The chamber of Truth was banned to all but the King himself, guarded by none but a seal of his own Truth, impenetrable. After much discussion and convincing, the two had collaborated on a plan to break in. It was a high-risk operation, but also one that they felt _had_ to be carried through, Surely, the King’s Truth, another new resource unimagined before their father’s reign, would hold at least a clue as to their Kingdom’s continued success.

“Come on, Aql,” he prodded. “What’s the worst that we’ll find? Besides, no one else is allowed down this hall but father. It’s not like we’ll be caught. He’s in a meeting with those three senators.”

“But what if-?”

Edan laughed, tossing his head back. His braid bounced against his back.

“We’ll be fine. Just pop in, investigate a bit, and get the hell back out of dodge.”

“It has ‘Truth’ in its very name, brother,” Aql continued to discourage.

Edan fell silent for a moment, then whispered a quiet curse.

“Aql, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Besides,” his eyes met his brother’s, “I’m going to become King, and you’re going to be my primary advisor. My second-in-command, practically my shoulder. We need to know how he’s done it.”

Aql glared for a moment before relenting with a sigh.

“Fine. Go ahead.”

Edan nodded, slipping his hand into his pocket. His fingers danced over a small, frozen vial. He lifted it out and held it in front of his face, examining it with wide, golden eyes.

Inside of the thick diamond cage, flesh and blood intertwined and glowing with a soft, golden hue waited temptingly. Edan licked his lips and opened it before pressing its open end against the doorway. The soft golden light glowed brighter, briefly, and then died down. Edan and Aql were still. The door was still. Disappointment welled up in Edan’s chest. If this didn’t work after all, then his father would surely become immediately aware, seeing as exudations of his own soul had just been pressed to a door linked to it itself. Edan and Aql would probably be executed. Maybe not, but probably. That had always been a possible consequence, but it wasn’t one that Edan feared. Death was, after all, merely a step further towards the Truth.

Silent as still air, the doors swung open. Had Edan been turned around, he never even would have noticed. That said a lot for one with his mother’s genes.

He stared. The room was small, almost pathetically small, and darker than the rest of the palace. Discarded old books, most falling apart or covered in dust, littered the floor, which was made of bricks and crystalline minerals. Green lanterns hung from the ceiling to about the height of his waist, seven in total. In the center of the room, a black cloud floated in a glass flask, almost like some sort of gas caught in one of their reaction experiments.

Instantly captivated, Edan stepped inside. Aql was more hesitant, but was quick to follow when the doors began to close.

Just as silently as they’d swung open, they swung shut.

A red eye fixated on Aql from within the flask. He startled.

“Who are you?” it demanded.

Edan, too, jolted.

“Are you Hohenheim’s sons?”

“Who’s asking?” Edan asked, immediately hostile in his lack of understanding.

“I don’t have to answer that. You’re the ones who just broke into King Xerxes’s secret room.”

Edan growled. Aql sat a hand on his shoulder.  
“What are you?” his brother asked.

The _thing_ , whatever it was, laughed.

“Ask King Hohenheim that.”

“Uh, no.”

“Brother, this is really weird. We should go,” Aql pleaded, turning on Edan.

Edan stepped forwards again, almost resting his hands on the dias that the flask sat upon.

“No,” Edan determined, though he himself wasn’t quite sure as to what he saw before him or its consequences. They’d already so far, after all.

He stared into the thing’s eye.

“If we are King Hohenheim’s sons, what would it mean to you?”

The thing blinked.

“Not much. Just interesting.”

Yeah, Edan definitely didn’t trust the thing.

“Will you tell him that we were here?” Aql asked, his eyes wide.

The thing chuckled.

“Of course not. I don’t have to. He already knows.”

 

Homunculus, the Dwarf in the Flask, was their first true test set upon them by their father. It soon became more of a guide or teacher than anything else, and if they were willing to stretch their description, a friend.

While they still didn’t trust it, they certainly were able to learn much from it.

That, they did.

 

Edan was fifteen when their mother died. The tragedy devastated him, her illness falling her in the Courtyard Prime while he and Aql scoured the capital.

After, he locked himself in his father’s chamber of Truth for the majority of a month, coming out only to shower and eat.

The Kingdom was fine without him.

“So, you’re finally re-engaging with the rest of your kind, I take it?” Homunculus asked.

Edan scowled, resting his hand against the door.

“I’ve neglected my duties as Crown Prince, and I should immediately now retake them up.”

“That’s rough. I do think, though, that I might be able to help you receive some of the _wisdom_ of your mother.”

That word could mean anything, coming from Homunculus.

He whipped around, staring at the dwarf in the flask with dark, narrowed eyes. The green light of the lanterns lighting up the tiny room, less even a room than some of the palace’s closets, reflected off of his eyes and hair, turning all of his gold into ghastly lime hues.

“How?” he asked.

 

He didn’t know what had happened. One moment, the transmutation was going fine. In the next, he found his body assaulted by pure sensation, mental and physical and all-encompassing. He could feel too much, and he couldn’t feel anything. He had less than a millisecond to question just what was happening before his mind blanked and suddenly, all of it was pulled from him.

No. He was being pulled. Something, he, was ripping away from his own body.

He turned his head down to his arm. It was golden, crystalline, and inhuman in a way that he’d never known it to be.

 

The Truth scolded him in his sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) الرجل الذهبي  
> ~ "Golden one" in Arabic
> 
> (2) بقايا  
> ~ "Remains" in Arabic
> 
> (3) “Ona elde etmek,”  
> ~ "Get her!" in Turkish
> 
> (4) Büyücü orada  
> ~ "The sorceress is there" in Turkish
> 
> (5) Evet  
> ~ "Yes" in Turkish
> 
> Arabic shall be used to indicate the Ishvallan language, while Turkish indicates desert fae.
> 
> \--
> 
> Sorry that it's been so long since last chapter! I'm hyped asf for this, but Calculus has begun and it's already kicking my ass. This'll be a fun semester. Good luck to all of you who may be in school or college or working or!


	5. 0.4 Nightglow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, it's been a while. I tried to write this in increments throughout last semester, and it's taken me a while to find the time to go through and rewrite and edit this into a cohesive chapter. You have my sincerest apologies for that.  
> I'm happy to announce, though, that the Calc hiatus is over. There's going to be a lot going on in this next arc of the story, so to those of you who've stuck it out-- bundle up for the Drachman winter.
> 
> Without further ado,

Olivier wasted no time in pouring out the hard stuff-- for herself and for the woman that she was soon to again greet. Edan watched her with wide eyes as she absently sloshed golden, watery fluid into two glasses at the two-seat mini table against the door wall of her office. Her hair fell in a sheer, lightly shining white-blonde curtain around her face, concealing her expression from view.

“I’ll continue to uphold our deal through this mission,” Olivier abruptly informed, wasting no time for lengthy explanation.

Edan blinked stupidly, momentarily confused, and then his eyes narrowed.

“Ah, yes, thank you,” he acknowledged.

It’d been a rough topic left mostly unspoken of over the past two years. At first, he and Olivier had conversed often, building up their trust in one another through wit and proofs of purpose. The first year had been rough. Very, very rough.

 

_There were never any others who visited beyond the three._

_A faint breeze drifted through the cell. Edan shivered, his skin prickling. The bright light of day shone in from fortified glass windows at each end of the hall. One of them had an air leak, and he had a suspicion as to which._

_After a good month or so, his body had finally relaxed back out of its protective phase. During that time, he’d had only the same few guards; Miles, Buccaneer, and the Major General Armstrong._

_The thick, heavy doors to his solitary containment chamber slid open. He craned his neck forward from where he sat cross-legged on the ground, looking to see who it could be._

_He didn’t need to bother._

_In mere seconds, they stepped through the thick grey curtain which served as a last reserve for concealment and towards the wrought iron bars cutting through the main chamber into Edan’s cell. He clambered to his feet, running a hand through his hair. He readied his best, brightest, winning smile. He’d been a man of society, to a degree, after all._

_A man of society even if his interest learnings came mostly from the streets of Xerxes rather than his textbooks or royal guides. He was a man of culture!_

_“Major General!” he greeted._

_Somehow, the looming frown on her face loomed harder, sharper._

_“Cut it, Van Edan,” Olivier silenced him. In her left hand, a small, silver spectacle gleamed._

_He eyed it curiously._

_Surely, that wasn’t for him._

_They’d bartered a lot. By which that meant, a lot a lot._

**You can’t be a dead Prince.**

_But he was a living King, if his memories were to be believed._

_“Why are you here?” he asked, dropping his smile and raising his chin. His sharp eyes cut into her own, their temporary mask of glee deadened into the mess of foggy, mixed emotions he kept pushed under._

_She stepped away, pacing to the far wall and placing her other hand upon it for a moment before turning back towards him. He watched her every move carefully._

_“I want to ask you a favor,” she began._

_Instant warning bells went off in his mind; the bitch was dangerous, that much he had gathered._

_He crossed his arms, leaning onto his right hip._

_“Oh?”_

_Certainly, what interested her enough to consult him, her prisoner, for a favor had to be of relevance._

_She stopped just before his cell once more, her expression boring into his mind. Her eyes were detached, calculating; her eyebrows were arched and furrowed; her dry lips turned down at the corners. The lines of her face seemed unnaturally deep, conveying age beyond her own._

_He ran his tongue over his left canine tooth, the muscle hugging it anxiously. He sucked in his right cheek, lightly biting down._

_“Prisoner or not, I don’t house useless freeloaders, so I want you to play a role for me over the next few years. In return, you will be granted mostly unlimited access to texts that I can procure and, gradually, freedoms otherwise.”_

_He waited, his figure still._

_“I need you to work as an informant in ways that my own soldiers, as citizens, are incapable. You’ll have to forge relationships within and beyond this Fortress all while staying on the down-low and out the Amestrian government’s eyes. From what you’ve told me and from what the Major, Buccaneer, and I have witnessed, you seem…,” she paused, “capable, at the very least, of accomplishing that.”_

_He eyed her, then shifted his gaze to the iron bars keeping him hostage._

_“Your payment will begin before your first assignment. You’ll also be privy to much of the same training and opportunities as my soldiers. However, you still will not be a part of our military, and until otherwise notified, a technical prisoner of Fort Briggs.”_

_Something in his gut told him not to voice the doubt creeping up his throat, but all the same he recognized that she had most certainly already predicted his line of thought._

_“And what would you do if I decided to leave upon my released?” he asked. Then, with an ounce more energy, he added, “What if I cross the border?”_

_The first smile that he’d ever seen grace her face arose, though it was more of a smirk than anything._

_“Then you’ll see Xerxes fall again.”_

_For the span of all of two heartbeats, he was silent. Then, he barked out a laugh._

_“That’s rich, ma’am. Now that is rich,” he chortled, though there was no mirth held in his gaze. He sobered up again. “I don’t think that you know what you’re talking about.”_

_She closed her eyes, exhaling, then reopened them._

_“No, and from what I hear,” her own teeth shone in the light, “there are very few who do.”_

 

“So what is it, then, the ‘correlation’ that you earlier mentioned?” Olivier asked, leaning back against her desk and setting the glasses aside.

Edan straightened his back, a muscle in his jaw twitching. His eyes darted around the room, pinpointing every shadow and briefly tracing its outline.

“They spoke the language of my mother, ma’am,” he answered quickly. “Malayikatuh _(1)_ , that is, the language of the Eastern desert ‘witches’ driven from Ishval into Amestris and then soon after into Austerland at the turn of about ten decades ago.”

“But of course, they weren’t witches,” Olivier conceded.

A now-familiar, disappointed smile tugged at the corners of Edan’s mouth.

“No,” he agreed. “No, they were not. They were not and there shouldn’t have been a manner through which they could have been driven out by man.”

Olivier rolled her head slowly around, cracking her neck.

“So then tell me,” she ordered lowly, “what drove them out?”

Her eyes focused in on him again, sharp and already knowing.

“An alchemist fraud, to my prior understanding,” he answered, “or, with the information that I might be able to pack from my most recent endeavor, an untruth.”

She blinked, sliding off of her desk and coming to stand before him.

“And that means?”

He stared directly into her eyes, unflinching.

“It’s just a theory,” he breathed, “but perhaps, a being called ‘homunculus’ is what I saw in that tunnel. It certainly was devoid enough of light.” Her breath breezed across his face. “Darker than the vast void of space, even.”

He broke away.

“That, however, is immensely unlikely, especially given your ‘alchemically superior’ nation’s current understanding, or rather lack thereof, of Truth. The last homunculus that I knew of, and the only one at that, had to have been eradicated with the rest of my people.” At that point, he’d begun to ramble, pacing around her office as he lost himself in thought. “Either way, the fact that the terrorists spoke that language, despite it having been considered dead in the East, even if we have no way of knowing whether it’s practiced at all further West, is interesting. They didn’t seem to know that the Flame was present until our little debut.”

Olivier, who had for a moment seemed particularly interested in his theories, raised a gloved hand to rub at the space between her brows.

“I’ll pretend that I caught half of what you just said and stick the rest to lost in ‘heavily accented alchemist to Amestrian’ translation.”

He frowned, realizing that he had, indeed, let go of his control over his tongue for a moment. He usually kept it well guarded, but in his growing comfort around the woman (if it could be called that, which to be fair it most certainly could not), he’d seemed to have begun loosening up with it in her solo presence.

“Sorry,” he apologized, to which she perked up at.

He narrowed his eyes at the sight. It wasn’t like he was always completely rude! He’d had a scary experience.

“To put short, Ishvalan terrorists seemingly after Flame spoke a dead language that may or may not have ties to a suspicious witch-hunt in ancient Ishval and pre-Amestris Amestrian-area settlements.”

To that, she nodded.

“Alright. Next question. Seven terrorists were found dead in an alleyway, which I assume would be your work. However-.”

“That wasn’t my work if they were dead,” Edan immediately retaliated.

She stared at him, her eyes wide.

“I beg your pardon?”

He distinctly remembered the split of a group of ten, seven running off in a direction that he hadn’t followed.

“If seven terrorists were killed outside of the tunnel, then it wasn’t me. I didn’t kill anyone inside of that damned thing, either.”

She appraised him in silence for a moment, then began to reach for her glass; with a start, she pulled her hand back, almost as though she were thinking, _no, not yet._

“Okay,” she accepted with an abrupt nod. “Then who did?”

Edan shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he tried. “I was too busy worrying about Flame and Hawkeye to keep tabs on the entire group. For all that I know, there could be a lot more of them who escaped than on whatever records you’ve been putting together.”

This time, she actually grasped for her glass when she reached for it, knocking back a long, hard swig. He winced.

“That’s pleasant to consider.”

For a moment, both of them were silent, and then Edan asked, “Who are you assigning to investigate it?”

Of the terrorists, Edan wasn’t too ridiculously worried. Rather, he actively found himself muting his own desire to request permission to investigate. After all, could he find those responsible, there was certainly much intelligence to be gained. Unfortunately, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity for freedom from his contract following the infiltration mission that had been so callously thrown onto him. He wondered how long she’d known of plans of it and of how long she’d been planning to tack him onto its duo.

As for the tunnel, however, no one in the Fortress would be set for such a task, of that, he knew. A horrible sensation rose through his veins, welling in his being. Surely, anyone assigned to it would face the same fate as the terrorists who’d been slaughtered within it.

Olivier stared past his face at the door, contemplating. For a while, it seemed like there would be no answer as the gears in her brain slowly turned. Then, eventually, her eyes crawled back over to his face, considerate.

He breathed in.

_Oh no._

Whatever idea she had, it was certain to be something special.

“I wouldn’t want to assign my men to certain death, of course,” she began.

He lowered his chin, fidgeting his jaw as he glowered. In the past, she’d always been ruthless with her assignments. Certainly, she would see reason.

“However, the appearance of armed terrorists in the town is quite nerve wracking. Simultaneously, their apparent demise by something of your nature is just as. Describe to me, one more time, how the terror attack seemed to begin.”

Edan opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, considering. He frowned.

“There was a loud _‘bang,’_ ” he slammed his fist against his palm to illustrate, “from outside followed by lots of shouting. We were all in Little Lucy’s. A little _thingy_ , possibly that shadow, was watching from the wall when a few shots were fired inside at us. I think Ruth and Riza were looking out the door, so given that I saw the terrorists were Ishvalan, that’s likely when their objective became us.

“Along with that, at least some of their party were… decidedly not human.”

Olivier raised a brow, staring at him unimpressed..

“So, like you?”

He rolled his eyes with a sigh, crossing his arms.

“To a degree. They had similar reflexes, hyperawareness, and ‘discontenting’ abilities, but that was it, at least from what I witnessed.”

“That still makes a dangerous footsoldier,” Olivier warned.

“Yes, yes,” Edan agreed. “But that’s not what’s really important. What’s really important is the question of why they decided to perform an attack in the town. Are there others stationed elsewhere? At the very beginning of their attack, they started to make a statement.

“A statement?”

He nodded.

“Anti-Amestrian, though that’s no surprise. ‘ _Fuck this forsaken state,’_ I think it was. Then something about milk, which isn’t a surprise if by chance the one who called out was like myself, and then they started to verbally engage me with… not nice terms. If they’re at least a thousand years old, or heck, even generally educated on ancient civilizations and tongues, then that’s fairly reasonable, but morally iffy. What’s even more interesting though is that even after most likely recognizing Ruth’s face at the bar, they shot at me first.”

Olivier held up a hand, processing the information. After a few seconds, she dropped it down again.

“Later on,” Edan continued, “they referred to Ruth as ‘he,’ which was decidedly flame-worthy, though at the time I had bigger priorities.”

She pursed her lips.

“As you’ve likely already figured, Ruth is a special person,” she started.

Edan glared, recalling some of the articles he’d read about her. Many, whether written for or against her actions, scoffed upon her for not being a man. In Amestris’ eyes, it seemed that the outer body mattered more than the mind. He, on the other hand, knew fully well that in the eyes of Truth and the cycle of life, the outer mattered not in the least.

“Ruth’s a perfectly normal human being with a dash of horrendous flaming massacre,” he defended. “I don’t care what Amestris’ strange ideas of normality have to say about that. She’s done terrible things, she might even be a terrible person; I, myself, haven’t quite decided yet. However, she’s otherwise just another person.”

For a moment, Olivier’s eyes trained onto his own, and both were entirely still. It were as though Edan were being tested and she was the testee. Then, the very corners of her lips lifted, and she said,

“Very good. I’m glad that Xerxesians can recognize what truly matters in a soldier.”

Edan huffed.

“ _Truth_ , woman, is everyone a soldier to you?” he asked.

“Potentially,” she answered. “But please, do continue on.”

He held up his hands.

“That’s everything interesting that I’ve got to report. I tracked them to the tunnel and went in, but by then, the terrorists were already dead. There was that shadow, and I’m fairly certain that it was the same shadow as I saw on the tavern wall, and it backed off almost as soon as I entered.”

High on the left wall, a clock ticked off the seconds. Olivier licked a strip over her lower lip, glancing up at it, and then nodded, refocusing her attention back on Edan.

“Alright. I’m going to assign you one more mission for the night, one final mission for you to carry out as my personal secretary.”

Edan’s breath caught in his throat.

“And that is?” he asked.

She smirked down at him.

“Find one person in this Fortress to lead an investigation on the terrorists. I’ll assign someone to find entrances to and keep a watch on the tunnel from its outside, but I don’t want to waste lives on whatever’s inside when even you don’t _seem_ to know.”

He frowned at her implication. He wasn’t lying; and besides, he’d already disclosed the possibility of it being a homunculus-type being. It certainly didn’t seem fae, though something in him told him that he couldn’t give her any knowledge of that sort of possibility.

Amestris had grown from the fall of the ancient fae of the area, after all. Those from Ishval had been driven into the forests and those in the forests had been driven into Austerland, according to the… children’s book fairytale recountings that he’d read. They never painted the fae in a good light, hence in each there were always alchemists and warriors fighting them off, driving them further Westward.

Fae were made out to be fictional villains, tricksters at the best and homunculus-like monstrosities at the worst. They ranged in many forms, but never were they good.

Absently, he wondered what would happen if he wrote an alternative fairytale. Maybe he could call it, ‘The Good Faery.’ However, he’d have to experience Amestrian culture up close and personal to take any such action himself.

On that thought, he absently nodded, though whether it was to himself or Olivier, he didn’t know.

“Alright,” he then agreed, blinking out of his thoughts. “Do you have any sort of preference?”

“Useful and not absent-minded like yourself just now,” she ordered.

He bit his tongue, turning around.

“Riiiiight,” he said. “Alright, on that note, I’m out of here. Enjoy your lack of myself being around.”

“I certainly will,” she bit back.

He flexed his fingers in his glove, then reached for her doorknob.

It burned as though acid was soaking through the cotton.

 

* * *

 

To Ruth, makeup was warpaint. Perfectly blended powders over hydrational cream and concealers, bronzers and brushes of illumination to sculpt her face and guard her person. Stark, dark black liner streaking precisely along her lashes, almost-fuschia crimson liquids welling plumply on her lips in thick vivid-to-dark gradient; they were the weapons, the first line of both defense and offense in perfect tandemonium that others encountered upon acquaintance. Yet, with each soft, warm, tugging swipe of wet cloth at her skin, pulling lightly, all of it melted away. Left behind, as always, was she.

She was stronger than her defense and her offense; they were merely forefront grounds which she had built. Her body, her muscles, were strong, the product of endless attention and difficult training. Her mind, sharper than the whip of a viper snake, was far stronger.

Yet, she found it wondering. Toying about between different strings of thoughts, dipping its shiny rain boots into puddles of possibilities, splashing ideas and potential theories about with all of the grace of an excitable, uncoordinated yet well-focused child. Within the span of a day, it’d been stung by a bee; yellow and black, golden and with a stinger swathed in shadows darker than an unending tunnel, airy yet claustrophobic in its direction, with no light.

Perhaps it was the instinct of a predator recognizing one of its own, or perhaps it was the strike of fear impaled permanently into her soul for the tragedies her own hands and heart and head had knowingly spawned, but she knew that she was being hunted. The terrorists of the day had come as no surprise, nor their reminder of the horrible reality that she had created, nor the size of their group and its impressive organization -- no doubt, derivative of one larger -- but the instant that she’d stepped her leather-shoe toe into the Queen of Briggs’s office, she’d felt it.

Such was no surprise in the Northern Fortress, either. In the cold, she had hardly been personally respected even during her time, only for her aptitude and capability rather than for her rank. It was the strings that she’d woven around the soldiers that had kept her afloat in the fort on her last ‘visit.’ Clearly, after so much time spent away, those had been broken and sank.

That was fine, she decided. Her stay wouldn’t be prolonged beyond the rise of the next day.

Reaching a water-wrinkled hand down into the first drawer under the standard ugly Briggs sink, the skin of her burn-hardened fingertips brushed against a thin, papery texture. In the steam of the shower, she grasped a small, white envelope and lifted it before her face to inspect it. It’d been constructed of high-quality parchment, bleached white as the snow outside, and had no peculiar design whatsoever. Gently, with the thumb nail of her other hand, Ruth eased its sticky non-seal open.

Just as she’d suspected, the envelope was empty. Not a single elegant line had been stroked across its surface, and not a speck of dust resided within it. Yet, it’d been sealed closed with its sticky glue.

Ruth wrinkled her nose at the thought of the Major General licking along its closing. She certainly wasn’t one to care for risk of bacteria or… the general gross flavor of the envelopes.

Her icy blue eyes, cold and calculating, sharp, staring right into Ruth’s own with the envelope’s edge resting just below her plump, ballerina pink upper lip as she licked a strip beneath it, skated to the forefront of Ruth’s mind. A rush of heat warmed her shoulders, reddening the skin at the tips of her ears and tracing along the sides of her neck. She glanced over the letter’s brim at her reflection in the mirror, seeing the black pupils of her eyes had enlarged, expanded.

_The thin, black leash jerked on the collar around her neck, forcing her up and forwards. Ruth winced, biting into her lower lip. Above her, with her heavy brown boots on her dark, glossily polished desk, Olivier raised a brow._

_“Is this how you were instructed to treat my soldiers, Major?” she questioned, lazily drawing the length of a thin black whip across the bridge of her nose. The end not in her vice grip sloped down to rest against her thigh, trailing up her thick military coat._

_Ruth bit back a whimper, thrusting her hips forward into open air. Her eyes fell closed in the dark room. There came another jerk around her neck._

_“Well?” Olivier breathed, the sound of her voice harsh and serious yet teasing all at once. “You order them to go out of their way to gather documents for you, clear issues and file papers for you, all while you sit brooding in that rugged old chair of yours, plotting how to invest further into_ my _Fortress.”_

_The chair in question was high-backed and of a lighter, more saturated wood, with olive green cushions held in by fake golden pins. It sat in the janitor’s closet of an office that Ruth had been afforded for the duration of her stay, so long as she didn’t overlive that. She’d found it sitting with a myriad of other belongings outside of the home of an old alchemist scholar moving Southward - Jaques Brinde._

_Olivier hmphed and pushed her body upwards with her hands, sliding over her desk to rest with her butt resting just on its edge. She kicked the tip of her boot out to dig ever so slightly into the skin below Ruth’s right cheekbone._

_“Well?” she asked. “What have you to say?”_

_Ruth was at a loss for words. For a moment, her mind stuttered; then, she lifted her head, dragging the bottom of her chin over the top of Oliver’s boot and resting it there. Olivier angled her foot in retaliation, digging the boot’s toe into the soft spot under Ruth’s jaw. The cotton strings scrubbed at her skin._

_Ruth fluttered her eyes open and smiled._

The fog of the room lifted considerably, snaking out through the slight crack of the open restroom door. Ruth tugged her cream-colored towel more tightly around herself, folding the tiny envelope into it with a tiny, slightly happier sigh. It had been a long time since she’d properly spoken to Olivier, and even longer since either of them had initiated any contact through the brief signal that were the empty, unmarked envelopes.

While they certainly would not and could never be a couple, they had occasionally met for brief hookups in the past. A large letter from one to another meant an invitation for one of those, while a smaller was an invitation for discussion. The two could be and had been easily intermixed in the past, but there was simply too much happening and frankly _wrong_ about the Fortress since she’d arrived for any distracting activities that night.

It seemed that she’d thought well in her preparation of bringing a Goldinger’s assembly, imported straight from Austerland in the West. Their cuisine was… similar to that of Amestris, but much more stark in comparison. Whereas Amestrian chocolates were creamy and melty, Austerland chocolates tended to be much darker and more brittle. They used more salt and made stronger wines than beers, though both countries floored champagne together. They ate fish from their many rivers more than beef or even poultry, and made cheeses all the stinkier.

For some odd reason, no matter how she tried to deny it, Olivier Armstrong was utterly enthralled by their food. Ruth herself shuddered to even imagine some of the more intensive flavors, but Olivier could sweep a carton of them as joyously as she’d ever been and still not get sick of them.

Ruth, on the other hand, would much rather stick to their more toned down flavors and crunchy pretzel buns… though she still couldn’t figure for the life of her why they would dry the buns.

On that note, she turned aside from the mirror, taking a few steps to the door and pushing it the rest of the way open. In the room that she and Riza shared, Riza sat on her bunk, staring down at tiny glass bottles of dried herbs and fluids, lidded by bottle caps. Her back stiffened at the creak of the door, her head whipping around, but she immediately relaxed upon seeing Ruth, the stress visibly drooping from her straight shoulders.

“Still got everything?” Ruth inquired, taking another step out and into the room.

Riza nodded, a trail of water from her still-wet hair trickling down the back of her neck from under the towel around her head.

“Yes,” she answered. “Still, I don’t think that I like having so little of it all with…,” she paused, cracking her neck meaningfully.

Taking the hint, Ruth gave a small, “mmhm.”

Indeed, she didn’t quite like the idea after the events of their passed day, either.

The light green silk of Riza’s pajamas jadened at the shadows cast by their folds, reflecting the low light of the oil lamp between their cots left on for each to work. Carefully, Riza grasped and placed each tiny jar back into its proper place within the pouches of her equipment belt, securing them safely. The light of the lamp caught on one’s rim, revealing tiny, intricate symbols carved in. They wouldn’t break anytime soon, that was for certain.

Ruth gave another tiny sigh, mentally scolding herself for the unbecoming habit. She continued forward, coming to stand just behind Riza before sitting down next to her on her cot. For a moment, they both sat in silence, Riza dutifully working whilst Ruth continued to ponder, swept away by her own racing mind, before Ruth flopped onto her back.

Riza snorted, pausing again just long enough to playfully punch at her shoulder.

“Did the Major General invite you for another affair?” she teased.

Ruth rolled her eyes.

“Yes,” she groaned, “but I already took a shower and my hair’s wet and my face is unmade and I don’t want to put on clothes that I packed for- _!_ ”

Just as the words came tumbling out of her mouth, Riza pushed her to the floor. Her thighs crushed her forelegs beneath them, her torso toppling gracelessly down. Her left shoulder hit the floor hard, her hand crushed beneath her chest.

“ _Lieutenant,_ ” she groaned, “how could you betray me?”

“With ease, Ma’am,” Riza answered plainly. “You were being lazy again.”

Ruth rolled her eyes and disentangled her limbs, pushing off of the floor.

“Alright, then,” she conceded. “I’m up.”

She would get answers to Edward’s… quicks, insight to his discussion with Olivier, and she would hit on her with the Austerland box.

 

The power walk to Olivier’s board was tense and deafeningly silent. Ruth’s heart pounded in her chest with each corner that she rounded, swiveling her head constantly to check for any mysterious shadows.

The thing, for lack of a better word, that had overcome them in that tunnel had seemed humongous and unbearably heavy, though it hadn’t so much as touched her. It was almost as if its presence had been a physical weight or, no, better, an anti-gravity and gravity at once, all of its own.

The sharp spike of pure, unadulterated terror that it inspired, however, remained ever-present.

The lurking sensation of something being around her, moving the particles of air, certainly didn’t help. It was as though there was someone in her vicinity constantly moving and constantly just out of sight and reach.

A tiny gust of warm air drifted down in front of her face. She glanced up, instantly relieved by the sight of a regular air vent just above her face.

The tiny hairs at the back of her neck prickled. The heat did nothing to reassure her of her lonesomeness in the halls beyond the night guards.

 

Ruth waltzed into Olivier’s office in the same manner as she waltzed everywhere else-- gorgeously, stretching her legs for emphasis to her position and as a testament to her validity _(fuck the naysayers)_ , and with her shoulders back and head held high. Ruth waltzed into Olivier’s office in Drachman hunting garbs, fully embracing their dark brown colors and white accents despite their… less than savory play on her beautiful features.

She was confident, yes, but so was her opponent, ally though she may have also been.

Confident, and, in the right circumstances, a total bitch.

That was all water under the bridge, though. Or, perhaps not under the bridge, but held back by a damned dam stronger than Fort Briggs itself.

Maybe.

Unlike before, when Olivier had sat at her desk with her feet kicked up on it like she owned the place -- which, to be fair, for the most part she _did_ , this time, the woman was nowhere to be seen. The thick, military blue velvet curtains that she kept over her windows were still. A few stacks of paper sat neatly piled on the edges of her dark mahogany desk, all of her quills tucked safely away into their golden vase holder and her ink pot’s lid secured. The light of a few other oil lamps flickered on the walls, active even in her seeming disappearance.

With their lower light, the office itself seemed smaller. That wasn’t to say, however, that it was any less intimidating. Shadows fell across the floor, walls, and ceiling. Ruth quickly found her eyes flicking up to the ventilation shaft in the far right corner.

Someone coughed to her left, and Ruth abruptly jerked her head.

_Ah._

Sitting at a small, two-person table upon which was propped not a chess board, as most politicians in Ruth’s experience would set up as ‘entertainment’ for such a meeting, but a literal _jenga tower_ , of all things, sat Olivier Mira Armstrong, smirking amusedly like a cat that caught a canary. Her sharp blue eyes were darker in the lower light, the light shining off of them like stars off of a deep, iced lake, her sharp features all the more prominent. The small yet intensive arch of her cupids bow was wicked over her thick lower lip.

“Close the door, Mustang,” she commanded, her voice low and sultry.

Another small shiver ran down Ruth’s back. She swore that she could feel a waft of cold air tease down her spine through the deep crimson wool turtleneck pulled over her black tank. Under Olivier’s half-lidded, half-interested eyes, she clumsily turned around and grappled for the door’s handle. It felt as though she were blind as her eyes watched the door swing, refusing to lower to assist in grasping for its knob. Blood rushed to her face, rising along her cheeks and forehead in an undoubtedly unattractive, confused flush.

She knew how doors worked!

Finally, finally, she grasped the knob properly and swung it carefully shut.

Oh, but it was moving too fast! She bit her tongue in mourning and jerked back slightly on it to slow it down, then gently eased it to rest against its frame. She pressed her right hand to the crack between the two and released the knob, listening for its satisfying, metallic _click_ before she breathed out a sigh of relief.

Olivier gave a huff from her position further along the door’s wall.

“That sure took you long enough,” she scoffed.

Ruth rolled her eyes.

“Glad to see that you’re as delightful to be around as ever,” she bit back sardonically, keeping her eyes on the door, unwilling to risk looking directly at her accomplice.

The lioness would eat her alive!

Olivier took a long swig of some golden liquor that she must have poured for herself earlier. Ruth risked turning her head towards her, but still kept her hand against the door.

She had to protect her escape route.

Seeing her internal struggle, Olivier raised a brow, setting her martini glass of- if that was beer in a martini glass, Ruth was going to throw a fit- down onto the tiny table again and beckoning Ruth over with one finger. Ruth gulped, slow, and allowed her hand to fall away from the door before she took several small, probably too long steps over.

… She knew she undoubtedly had to appear a mess. It really didn’t help that she could feel strands of her drying hair clumping together in odd combinations and patterns, likely sticking up about her head at random.

She schooled her expression, mentally cajoling herself as she pulled out her seat and hesitantly sat down.

_It probably just looks like cute, fluffy bedhead. My face is pretty without makeup. I don’t need Van Gogh’s illumination powder to win the ladies over._

_… But damn_ , she immediately thereafter thought, _does it work every time._

Olivier eyed her, unimpressed, before raising her gaze instead to the top of her jenga tower. For a moment, Ruth wondered what she could be looking at: Jenga was, in comparison to chess, a childish game for children to play. At the top of it, though, she caught sight of something shining in gold -- small, so small that she hadn’t even noticed it before.

Before she could say anything, or rather, ask anything, Olivier spoke.

“I’ve already discussed the events of today with my secretary. So, instead, I’d like to perform our usual touch-up exchange, assuming that you have anything meaningful to contribute.

“Amestris, as you’re well aware, is not what it used to be,” she began.

The shadows creeping along the walls seemed to lengthen, almost swaying with the harsh sound of her voice. Though Ruth found herself tempted, she knew that it wasn’t wise to begin asking the Major General about all of the questions floating around her mind. No, she had been purposefully excluded from chance at being privy to information of Edward, of the tunnel, and quite possibly- of the very group that had attacked that day- the group that logically should’ve been, but hadn’t seemed to have been, seeking her out.

No, for now, she would play Olivier’s game. She had Drachma to worry about. Then, she would return to her Lieutenant and they would either talk or try to rest, depending.

“The same can be said, of course, for the kingdoms surrounding. From an average citizen’s standpoint, all seems well. In the East, the competition between Xinguese clans brutally continues. In the North, the citizens of Drachma continue to suffer through the cold and hunger of their overpopulated land and unforgiving climate. In the West, Creta continues to expand ever further towards Austerland. Aerugo in the South remains economically sound, which is good for us so long as we put forth more men into their conquest.”

The tips of her fingers on each hand locked together beneath her chin. Her posture was immaculate, her expression calm even as her sharp eyes bore once more into Ruth’s own. Ruth dropped her gaze from the tip of the tower to meet it.

“However, that’s not quite right, now, is it?”

She flicker her left hand away from the other, reaching forth to absently stroke it along the side of the jenga tower before easing one light wooden brick, straight from the center at the very bottom, out. She held it away from the table, inspecting it from all angles before dropping it to the floor. It didn’t make a loud sound when wood hit wood, but nonetheless it resounded distinctly during its brief connect. She looked back at Ruth, pulling her arm back in towards herself.

Quickly catching on, Ruth picked up from where she left off.

“No, it isn’t.”

Just above where Olivier had taken her block, Ruth claimed hers as well, pushing to slip it out and reaching around the back of the tower to pull it through. She, too, held it away from the table, letting it fall to the ground much quicker than Olivier had. Something in Olivier’s eyes flashed; a challenge.

“Drachma has been quiet for the past two years, ever since the young Premier married that woman. Well,” Ruth paused, “mostly quiet. There have been minor border skirmishes between they and Amestris, they and Austerland. Nothing of any of them actually helps us learn anything of their status, though, since they refuse to deal with anyone to the South of the city Sarov, though they still vehemently claim the land and people. General Zima controls that area, loosely speaking. His main interest, however, is unknown, as the people themselves are free to live as they like, at least, for the most part.

“What makes the situation so odd, beyond those factors, is that from what few Austerlanian merchants we’ve heard word of them from, Drachma seems to have an immense military force, one possibly greater than Amestris’ own, which just doesn’t make sense. Given their location and size, they shouldn’t be able to support an army as large as ours, let alone a nation alongwith, which we do know for certain that they really aren’t. All that Briggs’ has seen and admitted of them are walks of soldiers with admittedly apt weaponry, on _horses_ , with no alchemists or any indication of strength otherwise. It just doesn’t add up.”

Without Ruth even realizing, Olivier had made her move. This time, she broke their trend, instead taking from two further up a brick from the side. Ruth glared.

“That’s impressively accurate,” Olivier admitted, having the gall to sound impressed.

No, not impressed-- satisfied.

“Meanwhile, Aerugo continues to try to reclaim Fotset and the old borders. Claudio Rico Aerugo, crown prince, has poured more funding into their military. As well, it would seem from word of Austerland merchants once more that Drachma is in fact violating the terms of _Severnoye Sochuvstviye_ \-- Northern Empathy.”

Ruth stood abruptly, slamming the heels of her palms onto the table as she leaned forward.

“What?” she gaped.

Olivier leaned back and took a sip from her martini glass.

Northern Empathy was a deal between Drachma and all smaller Northern nations that while it wouldn’t trade with Amestris or Aerugo, they being Southward rivals, it would assist nations as Northern or further so than itself. This was, of course, with the clause that they would assist it should the nation require additional military force, but it was a… gesture, though perhaps forceful and unkind, and held at least some semblance of ethical growth in the nation’s policies. More than Amestris’s drop in it, at the very least.

“I don’t repeat my words for people, if you’d care to remember, Mustang,” Olivier reminded. “You either heard what I said or you won’t.”

Ruth stood up straight, raising her hands to rub at her eyes.

“That doesn’t make sense, they haven’t traded with anyone further South than that damned town and Austerland in centuries.”

Olivier watched with amusement once more.

“And yet, they are.”

“And what of Austerland?” Ruth pressed. “What else could I not know?”

_What could Intelligence have not caught onto yet?_

Olivier took a much longer swig; this time, her glass came away empty. The bottom of it chipped as she set it onto the table. She didn’t seem to care, though the glass itself was probably made of crystal. Ruth almost wanted to cry at the waste.

“That’s a good question,” Olivier answered, drawing her words out nice and slow. For the first time, her eyes looked down, tracing along the grooves of the wooden floor boards under her feet.

Ruth wanted to rip out her own hair.

“What do you mean, you don’t know? Fort Briggs is the silent information hub of the North.”

“I don’t know.”

Now, Olivier’s words were cutting. Ruth froze, dropping her hands and sitting down again. She hastily scooted her chair in again, the wood of its legs scuffing against the wood of the floor.

“Austerland has historically been a help to this Fortress in particular, if not the rest of Amestris. They had a… a ‘history,” Olivier gave emphasis on the word, “with the pre-Amestris Julwald Bask cities. It’s said that many would-be Amestrians fled there when the ‘Sanstienten,’ _(2)_ a group led by a man with golden hair and eyes, started the crusades from somewhere assumedly between Resembool and Dublith.”

“I know that much, obviously,” Ruth bit out, reaching for her glass for the first time. It was, as she’d feared, filled with whiskey.

 _You’ve got to be kidding me,_ she inwardly complained. _Who puts_ whiskey _in a martini glass?_

Olivier Mira Armstrong was a disaster of a person.

Yet, as she watched the woman think, she couldn’t help but admire her.

“Austerland has no special wealth nor military power, though it borders both Drachma and Aerugo and, to an extent, us. It’s a known crime hub, to a degree, though its economy is stable. It doesn’t seem to be leeching too obviously off of either Drachma or Aerugo and it vehemently refuses to interact with us beyond its own citizens’ interactions. Its border with ‘us’ is mostly a slim but long strip of land controlled by Drachma. The most that we learn of them comes from their traders, who they refuse to control even the slightest bit. They’re a direct democracy, which should put them at risk from both bordering nations, and yet they remain unsquandered upon. They’re a mystery, moreso now than they’ve ever been before.”

Ruth felt her smirk building and she let it. Silently, she reached down to the leather bag of which’s strap was slung over her shoulder, opening it up and pulling a box out from within it. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest. She needed to get off-topic for a minute, wondered how much time it had been, she needed a _break--._

“Speaking of, my lady,” she grinned, “though my timing may not be impeccable, I do come with a gift in hand.”

Olivier rolled her eyes.

“Set it on my desk. Right now, we’re having a discussion, _not_ wooing each other with ultimately unnecessary delicacies.”

Ruth stood again and winked.

“You haven’t changed one bit.”

Fort Briggs stood clear and stark against the white snow and green forestry surrounding it, and within it, Olivier was just as much of a liar.

 

* * *

 

 _The Great Library of Xerxes, down under the ground a good four stories of dirt below the Lanky Tavern’s lowest known level, was where Edan made his final stop of the night. Its bunker itself was impenetrably dark as he navigated the maze of lightless halls and doors to reach the books themselves. Finally, after what to even he seemed a fruitless endeavor lasting quite possibly half an hour or longer to traverse (though of course, it simply couldn’t have been, right?), he reached his destination._ __  
_He wasn’t the least bit surprised of its being shrouded in darkness; only the royal family, after all, was meant to know of its existence._ __  
_Nonetheless, he called out loudly:_ __  
_“Light a fucking candle again already, Peirta.”_ __  
_For a moment, there was nothing. Then, his short, rather pointy right ear twitched at the sound of a match being lit. A spark appeared in the darkness, revealing the outlines of seemingly sky-high shelves of books and scrolls and unbound documents. Each went on for a good five or so room’s worth of length, and they all stood in a seemingly random pattern, shelves extending from the middle of others, some at odd heights hanging from the ceiling rather than coming up from the ground, circles and odd, ancient letters enscripted underneath their first layer of wood. From those hanging, there would be documents shelved even beneath them, defying gravity with the power of ancient alchemy that he’d oh, so missed._ __  
_There were no words, though there didn’t need to be. Silently, the carrier of the flame moved about a small area of the library, lighting candles one by one in an unsteady circle. Edan snorted, raising his right arm and snapping. Instantly, the flame from the candle split, sparks whirring instantly through the air and lighting every wax light in the library._ __  
_Though it itself remained only dimly lit, its grandeur became immediately clear to see: gold, spanning from the ceiling down the walls and to the marble floor. Entire tables grafted of fine porcelain housed books and papers and stone tablets that had never been returned, of which’s places had been lost to time and death._ __  
Ah, well. Texts got just as easily lost when hidden in organization as chaos, at least, in the Great Library.

 _His golden eyes landed on the only other person around, his cousin, a royal by the name of Pierta._ __  
Fucking finally, _he thought to himself._ __  
_“Hoe, where the fuck have you been?” he asked, automatically, even though he already knew the answer._ __  
They’d been here. Right here, in the library, for three years.

Three years? _He mentally questioned._

_No; it had been a thousand years._

_He couldn’t make out their face, their hair covered by a red scarf._ __  
_They stared at him as he made is way over, pinching their fingers together over the end of the match to strangle the remainder of its flame before they let it fall to the ground. A high pitched ringing, tinnitus, rung through the inside of his left ear._ __  
_“Edward,” they addressed him in a strange voice, rolling his name on their tongue. Their gaze rose to the ceiling shrouded in darkness before it fell back to him._ __  
_He halted in his steps, suddenly feeling uneasy. This wasn’t… something felt determinably off-kilter. Cold sweat broke out over his skin, his heart pumping ice water through his veins as he stared on in dread._ __  
It were as though there was a dark liquid bubbling up in his throat. He watched with wide eyes that felt as though they were part of a vessel rather than his own as they walked towards him, reaching out their hand…!

Suddenly, he was being physically shaken, held off of the ground by a hand at the collar of his jacket. He blinked in panic and confusion, grabbing onto the arm hoisting him into the air.

“M-Miles?” he choked out, heaving.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Miles had interrupted him, not by far. The man seemed to have a seventh Ed-sense that allowed him to stumble across Ed on a near-nightly basis.

“Kid,” he grumbled, clearly exhausted, “are you okay?”

Ed blinked watery eyes at him as his eyes adjusted to Briggs’ darker night lighting. The tunnels around him, rather than shining in a silvery-grey, were dark as slate, with shadows stretching along their corners. He shivered.

“You look pale, like you’ve seen a ghost,” Miles continued, peering concernedly down at him from behind his goggles. “Is what you saw today bothering you?”

Ed’s feet still dangled in the air. After a moment of looking past Miles’s head, he kicked one foot into Miles’s leg as a form of retribution, his boot making satisfying contact. Miles winced, the corner of his right cheek pinching, and reluctantly set him down.

He’d grown a lot since he’d first appeared at Briggs, at least a good few inches, seemingly having set at around 5’6” for the time. Miles, on the other hand, was a fucking tower.

“I’m fine,” he answered, after a moment, still not looking Miles in the eyes.

Miles sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Edan glared. _He_ hadn’t asked for the man to take up position as a stand-in father figure at Fort Briggs; Miles had brought this entirely upon himself.

“How on Earth can a Prince taught by a bunch of hoodlums be so bratty?” he complained.

Edan froze.

“Excuse me?” he asked, offended.

He wasn’t offended at the jest towards his mentors because the Major wasn’t actually wrong. It was a conversation that they’d had while he was studying Amestris’s scientific advancement. Their automail was definitely interesting, but they were severely (and almost unforgivably) lacking in their alchemic knowledge. While Aql had been mostly tethered to royal tutors, Edan had been taught the basics by them and then been tossed into the hands of experimentalists, often breaking away from the palace for weeks at a time as he gained political and street knowledge.

Whereas his brother learned everything confirmed true of alchemy with the brutal efficiency of the royal study, Edan learned theories and could-bes and really had to juggle the subject between the other fields that his father had deemed necessary for a ‘better’ ruler than himself. Edan learned how to navigate _societé_ and live side-by-side with his citizens. They were, to his initial horror, quite different experiences.

“You’d assume that a Prince would be taught basic human functions _._ You’d assume that having been taught alchemy mostly by hoodlums,” Major Miles used that word again, “he’d lose his inherent brattiness. But, no,” he almost seemed ready to laugh, “you just keep rolling.”

Once more, he became serious, placing a hand on each of Edan’s shoulders.

“Edward,” he addressed again, his voice commanding, “why were you passed out in the Command hall? Talk to me.”

For a moment, all was still as Miles stared Edan down. Finally, Ed rebuked:

“Sorry, but that sounds like a conspiracy to me, old man.”

Miles dropped Ed and turned around.

“You’re a disgrace to this Fortress, Edward Elric,” he stated.

Edan smiled.

“Yeah.”

He placed his hands on his hips.

“I’m good, just tired,” he self-excused.

“-An absolute wrecker of all things better left unspoken,” Miles continued.

Ed frowned, squinted, then caught on.

“Why, of course,” he agreed.

“Someone who should’ve been left where he was-.”

“That really probably would’ve been for the better of the Fort’s dignity.”

“-and who, under no circumstances, should ever be allowed to leave the Major General’s sight, let alone the country,” Miles finished.

“Ah, now I can’t quite agree with that one,” Edan teased. “I think that I could have a wonderful impact on this world.”

The Major  shuddered.

“You alchematized a carving of a phallus onto the wall facing Drachma and left it there for a day last year  just because the Major General banned you from going into our chemical inventory alone.”

“You know what they say,” Edan sassed, “alchemists have no clear moral code and are really just a bunch of clever douchebags.”

“You don’t disprove it,” Miles huffed.

Edan balked.

“Hey!” he yelled.

Miles winced. He immediately brought the volume of his voice down, whisper-yelling instead.

“I’ll have you know that I come from a line of some of the most…,” words that started off with his usual brilliant, vibrant energy trailed away, “powerful alchemists.”

Miles raised a brow. Edan stared down the hallway as a shadow moved. He breathed in deeply through his nose, frowning.

“Earth to Ed?” Miles tried. “Even you can’t call them nicer than yourself and that’s really something special there.”

Edan breathed in through his mouth, his left ear twitching. He could hear footsteps, soft yet firm, and that scent of lavender  was definitely familiar, but he just couldn’t quite place just who--.

“My grandfather was a mistake to this world,” he allowed, not really paying any attention to the conversation anymore and absently hoping that his words fit in.

“Says the cryptid mistake to the world standing right in front of me,” Miles mused back. At Edan’s lack of response, he wrinkled his nose. “What’s-?”

He turned just as a familiar, new face came swiftly around the corner. With her hair down and her military-issue coat off, First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye seemed… different.

Edan broke first.

“Ah, Riza!” he called out.

She nodded to him once, then focused some sort of half-glare, half-disappointed stare on Miles. The Major stepped away, towards her.

“What on Earth are you two doing awake out here at this hour?” she questioned, her harsh voice unfitting to the soft, fuzzy, neutral-colored sweater adorning her shoulders.

Edan stared at it in wonder. It looked so fluffy!  
“I-I, uhhh,” Miles stammered, glancing quickly at Edan only to find him intensely enraptured. A drop of sweat dripped down his forehead.

The Lieutenant sighed, focusing her attention instead on Edan again.

“If you’d remember, Elric,” she scolded, “we’re up bright and early tomorrow morning. All business and preparations should already have been taken care of. You need to sleep.”

Edan blamed the shadows for his sudden dry mouth and lack of excusability.

“Well, you see,” he attempted, “I was just coming back from the Major General’s office.” He raised hands in a mockery of counting on his fingers. “I’ve got one more thing left to do before I go to bed, and it’s really quite important, so-.”

“That’s depressing, Sir,” Riza cut him off, staring at his face in what looked like some form of concern. “I would raise questions or offer to assist you, but as I already stated, we both need to sleep.”

She turned her eyes again to Miles, raising her hand in a salute.

“Major,” she addressed.

He nodded back, breathing out a sigh of something - relief? - through his nose. Edan frowned. It looked like Miles wouldn’t be getting the talk that he’d been earlier in pursuit of, but perhaps he was now after something different.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he murmured, reaching his arms up above his head to stretch them back. “This kid’s on you for the night.”

Edan, once more, balked, glaring up at him with fiery eyes.

“Excuse me?” he put out, offended. “I haven’t been a kid since-!”

“Yeah, I know,” Miles interrupted sharply. “Now, what was it that the Major General had you up doing? I thought that you were just… sleeping.”

Edan dropped his head, mumbling under his breath.

The Major glared downward, icy and ruthless, at Edan, immediately resparking their standoff. Unlike the glare of the Major General, his glare was bold and smooth, but not without edges. Much like most of the Briggs soldiers, he refused to look away.

The low lighting of the hall caught on Miles’s goggles. Edan raised his face suddenly with an idea.

The Major was of Ishvalan descent, just as the terrorists. He didn’t seem to have any fae in his blood, but if anyone could manage to gain intel on them in his absence, perhaps even communicate with them-

It would be him.

With that, he’d made his decision. Besides, if the Major General appointed a Major to lead the terrorism investigation, surely that would reflect well on her in the eyes of her higher-ups.

“Nevermind,” he decided, shaking his head. He looked up. “I’ve just completed it.”

Riza squinted suspiciously, but Miles merely sighed.

“Whatever you’re doing, just don’t involve me,” he requested.

“Can’t do, Sir,” Ed cheekily replied, raising his right arm in a mock salute.

Miles breathed in.

“Edward Elric,” he began, only to be abruptly cut off by Riza once more.

“That’s enough, Sirs,” she quietly ordered. Both turned to her. “Edward,” she addressed, “whether or not you’re lying, you need to return to your dorm.” She glared up at Miles. “The same goes for you, Sir.”

Miles nodded, seeming to naturally bow to her say.

“Much agreed.”

Edan slowly blinked, the drowsiness that the Major had woken him from already returning.

“Yep, alright,” he suddenly interjected, “let’s go, Riza.”

He started forward, more than ready to return to his nice, cozy cot seven floors  down.

Riza stared at him in confusion.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

He stopped and turned, staring at her quizzically for a moment, and then realized his mistake.

“Your dorm is on the way to mine,” he explained. “Just several staircases away.”

Her eyes widened.

“There aren’t even other dorms on that floor! That’s storage,” she argued.

“Yeah, and what of it?” he asked.

She blinked, taking a step back and surveying him with a new, searching look in her eyes. He sighed, tapping his foot impatiently against the ground.

After a few seconds, she seemed to have come to a conclusion.

“That’s inconvenient, Sir,” she hesitantly began. “It would be impossible for anyone to actually tell if you’re going to your dorm with that distance. Room with Ruth and I.”

Edan froze as though a bolt of lightning had shocked through his system.

“I- eh-excuse me?” he stuttered.

Now more determined, Riza lifted her eyes. They locked him into their warm  brown hues.

“Room with Ruth and I for the night. That’ll presumably be our arrangement for the indeterminable future, as well, so it shouldn’t be a problem. You may return to your own dorm in the morning. However, _I_ won’t have one of our party dead on his feet tomorrow.”

 _Ah,_ Edan thought. _That makes more sense._

Miles nodded.

“Alright, you two can sort _that_ out,” he determined. “I’m gonna check out of this conversation and into my own bed.”

He turned away, quickly walking away to escape.

“Good night, old man!” Edan called after him.

Riza choked.

“That’s disrespect!” Miles called back.

Edan turned back to Riza, biting the inside of his cheek. Suddenly, a hand reached up and blunt, tough nails pinched into the skin of his ear. His body jerked.

“Wha-?”

“I’ve calculated at least an 89 percent chance that if I let go you’ll run,” she answered, pinching even harder; he winced and her nails dug further into his skin, “and I figured that it would be more pleasant for the both of us like this as opposed to me walking you there at gunpoint. Please, Edward?”

She smiled softly. It vaguely reminded him of his mother.  
_Damn_ , he had no defense, no resistance against smiles like that. He’d been called weak repeatedly by his mentors of old and the soldiers of Briggs for it.  
He bobbed his head in submission.  
“Alright, but for the record, Ma’am, you’re terrifying,” he stated shakily.

She nodded, still not letting go.

“I know.”

 

* * *

 

The door creaked when Ruth gently pushed it open, slipping quietly into the dark room.

“Riza?” she whispered out.

There wasn’t one body laying on one cot, but rather, one on each of the two that she _knew_ were hers and Riza’s. She gulped, her hand shaking. She hadn’t grabbed her glove-- how could she have been so stupid?

The figure on hers twisted in what could only be sleep, the sound of soft breaths the only thing keeping her from screaming. As her eyes adjusted to the lowered light only barely managing to seep into the room from the hallway, she started; that was, without a doubt, Edward Elric.

His thick braid of golden locks had been undone, spanning across her pillow in a mess doubtless to become painfully tangled by morning. The lower half of his face was snuggled under her blankets, as was the rest of his body; now fetal, as opposed to what before must have been dorsal-down.

After a moment of her standing, frozen in place, he continued to sleep, but Riza, on the other hand, sat up in her cot. Her silhouette remained silent, as though daring Ruth to wake him, and then she beckoned her over.

Ruth allowed the door to fall gently closed, walking quietly around her cot and over to Riza’s. The woman gently grabbed at her sleeve, tugging downwards.

 _Lay with me,_ she seemed to say.

For a moment, Ruth stared incredulously, trying to decipher her thoughts, then simply ruled it off as another of Riza’s odd but almost always for the better plans. Such also included: tripping her in battle to prevent worse damage, loading her desk with Havoc’s important paperwork, and bringing her dog into the office.

Ruth peeled back the covers gently, slipping in as the exhaustion of their over-full day finally sunk her bones below. Riza’s arms wrapped around her waist and her breaths stirred the small hairs on the back of her neck.

“He sleeps like a child,” she whispered lowly.

Ruth nodded, trying and failing to peer into the darkness at her own cot.

“Yeah.”

Undoubtedly, they’d have a lot left to discuss come morning. After all, if there was no conversation that night, the plan had been to rest safely with one another.

They were, hopefully, she thought, as safe as they could in that moment get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) "Malayikatuh" (Arabic) - his angels  
> 'His' in this context refers to Ishvala, and 'angels' to fae. It's the Ishvalan term for the language of Ishvalan local fae.  
> (2) "Sanstienten" (Frisian) - tribe of the sand and stone, but meshed into one term.  
> I'm going with the idea that pre-Amestris 'Amestris' was split into many different settlements, and so this is how they recognized a moderately sized invasive force after the first few settlements fell and said invasive force became a group.
> 
> \--
> 
> TL;DR: North of Aerugo and West of Drachma, that unnamed nation that looks like it Isn't Drachma but seems to not have a name is now Austerland and it put an "Amestris Do Not Interact" sign on its border several hundred years ago.  
> If it's not too much trouble, I'd really, really appreciate any feedback that any of you could give on my delivery of this chapter. As I stated in the foreword, it was written in tiny portions over a very long period of time in which I was... haha, stressed and not great. It took me a while to get myself energized enough to finally pull this together, and though it is, I have no way of judging on my own at the moment how well I managed it. Hence, I'll probably rewrite this chapter in the future, further on down when its lines are no longer flowing through my brain and I can properly judge it.   
> Any feedback will be utmostly appreciated, and as always, I love to chat with y'all!


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